Year-Round Schooling

Knowledge is one of the most important things in our lives. It helps us in our daily lives to make choices and decisions, and also, it can help us in the long run; in our future jobs and such. It is very clear that we gain most of our knowledge in our school years, but the majority of students in America are not very open to the idea of school. In fact, most of them would say that they hate it. There is not a specific cure for this “anti-knowledge fever”, but many schools are taking a different route from the normal nine month school year. Year-round schooling is becoming more and more popular throughout the country. Currently, two million children are enrolled in schools that involve year-round schooling (mostly elementary schools). There are many advantages to year-round schooling that can, and will, help our nation and individuals prosper, as well as opening up a whole new form of education that could be effective to young students.

Now, before you can learn about the positive aspects of year-round schooling, it is important that you learn what year-round schooling really is. Some people may think that year-round schooling involves a child to go to school year after year, non-stop with no breaks, but this is not what it really is. Year-round schooling is an educational system specifically designed to help stimulate the adolescent mind by keeping it constantly working in a school environment throughout the entire year. The school does stay open all year-round, and there is no summer vacation, but the summer vacation is not completely lost. Instead, the vacation time is divided up and distributed throughout the year, and the entire year is divided up into nine weeks of school followed by a three week vacation. This cycle is called the single track design and it takes place all year long.

The cycle that the year-round school system is based on could actually improve student’s education. With being in school all year teachers don’t have to worry about having specific time limits on certain subjects. Some students learn at a slower pace than others, and teachers could work at a slower pace since they don’t have to worry about making deadlines before any long breaks like summer vacation. Long breaks can seriously effect what a student has learned before the break began. Many times students will come back to school and have completely forgot most of the things from the previous year, and then teachers are forced to re-teach the same material over and over again. With the shorter breaks students are able to recall the things that they had learned previously, and are able to move right on to learning about new topics and subjects. The year-round cycle can also work towards keeping students in the “school mode”. After a three month break in the school year, children aren’t used to getting up at 7:00 am for school and then working for seven hours every day for five days a week, and this could lead to lack of concentration during school hours. During the year-round schooling calendar kids would be used to working almost every day for the entire year with only a few short breaks, causing them to be able to staying in a “school mode” state of mind.

Not only will year-round schooling benefit the students in the educational environment, but also the teachers as well. Teachers in regular scheduled schools get into quite a dilemma when the time of summer vacation comes around; they are completely out of a job for three months. Now they have to worry about finding a job that can continue to pay for their bills, clothing, food, etc. until the next school year begins again and they can get paid on their regular teacher’s salary for the next nine months. In the year-round schooling programs, teachers have a steady, paying job all year-round, and they don’t have to worry about what they have to do once the summer vacation