Year Round School
Kourtney Nilsen
Kelly Russel
Current Issues Paper
1 November 2018
Year Round School
When people first hear the words “year round school”, teachers and students alike feel a shiver go down their spines. However, the words are not as daunting as they may sound. Typically, schools in the United States are attended Monday through Friday every single week for ten months straight with a two month break in the summer. With year round schooling, there is not a summer break, but instead there are multiple shorter breaks. Although year round schooling has some drawbacks, it has more benefits and might need to be considered for the future of schools.
Ten months worth of school and two months off in the summer was first introduced when the United States’ main focus was agriculture. The summer months off of school were for children who were expected to work in the field. Now that child labor laws have forbidden children being forced to work, there is no need to have two months off of school in the summer (Warrick-Harris). Times have drastically changed and schools should consider the change to having school year round. Schools should want to be progressive and keeping with a tradition that is hideously out of date is preposterous.
One benefit of year round schooling, and probably the most important, is that students are continuously learning. Everyone knows that a child loses knowledge over the summer that he or she learned from the previous school year. With year round schooling, this no longer happens and the next grade level teachers are able to keep building on knowledge once a student moves to the next grade. Under the year round schooling, students still have to attend school for 180 days of the year but there are breaks spread out throughout the year. The most common schedule for schools who attend year round, is the 45-15 plan. With this schedule, students attend school for forty-five days - or nine weeks - and then have a fifteen day long break - or three weeks. Of course, that is not the only schedule, there are the 60-20 and 90-30 plans (Warrick-Harris). Whichever way a school makes out their schedule, there is not a two month long break that allows students’ knowledge to digress. Every school year, teachers are forced to reteach subjects that were taught the previous year because students can not be expected to remember certain subjects when they have not been practiced for two months.
Another source mentions more benefits to year round schooling. Breaks from school would obviously be more frequent. This would help children to stay focused and not become bored of the everyday routine. This would help not only students, but teachers to stay positive and not become burnt out early in the school year. Another benefit is that it would create more respect for teachers. This may sound juvenile, but it is true. Teachers are not given the respect that they deserve. There is an old saying that goes, “Those who can’t do, teach.” That is so hateful to the teachers who taught every single one of the people who says that hideous quote. However, it is no secret that people sometimes refer to teaching as a lazy career because they are off for two months straight during the summer. But now that teachers would be going to work during the summer just like every other profession, they would not be able to consider teachers lazy (Screenflex).
Of course, with every topic, there are some disadvantages. Because schools would be open throughout the entire year, maintenance costs would be higher. For example, schools would be forced to pay a large air conditioning bill in the summer to keep the classroom environments at a comfortable temperature. Another disadvantage is that students would not be able to have a summer job like so many students need in order to save up for college, buy a car, etc.. They would have such arbitrary schedules that they would not be able to maintain a steady job. That is a bigger problem than it sounds. So many students in high school rely on a summer job to afford life’s necessities. Lastly, summer camps would take a drastic hit. They would basically become extinct because there would be no use for them anymore. Because different schools would use different schedules, like the 60-20 plan or the 45-15 plan, camps would not be able to accommodate all of the students. This would become a major issue for working parents needing childcare for their children (Warrick-Harris).