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Kyle McNeal
Professor Lindsay Strong
English 101-U515 Composition
27 Oct 2014
The Benefits of Year-Round Schooling
When the words year-round school are thrown out, many students will try and stop you
right there and run away as quick as they can. A common misconception of year-round
schooling is that it means more school, but actually it is just a rescheduling of the current
traditional schedule. Instead of getting close to three months of break in the summer, the yearround schedule suggests having multiple shorter breaks throughout the year in order for students
to retain more information and to help students from getting burnt out or losing focus from
long periods of school without a break. Year-round schooling needs to be the new schedule for
schools in the United States since it increases information retention with students, helps students
keep an interest in school, and helps to avoid stress with students, which will improve students'
learning in school compared to the traditional schedule which most schools are operating on
currently. Year-round schooling has been proven to not only help students retain information inbetween breaks more efficiently, but also certain types of year-round schedules have actually
been able to increase a schools occupancy as well as increase students general interest in
school.
Historically, the traditional schedule of August through May has been the norm for most
schools in the United States. This schedule was created in the early 1800s initially so that
children in rural areas could help harvest crops in the summer. This schedule was then adopted

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by urban schools mostly due to the fact that a majority of these buildings would get unbearably
hot during the summer months. The lack of free space with no air conditioning made teaching as
well as learning quite difficult for the teachers and students. Also, wealthy families were often
known to travel on vacations during these months as well. All of these concerns are no longer
relevant in today's society though. While there are still a large portion of students who work in
the agriculture industry, these children do not need the time off to help harvest crops anymore.
There is air conditioning in a majority of schools now as well, so that problem would be resolved
too. The only reason that this schedule has not changed in the past 200 years is simply because
of our general disliking for change. We continue to do things this way, because that is the way it
has always been. Americans have become used to the tradition of children going to school during
the fall, winter, and spring with the summers off. Because of this things like summer programs
and summer jobs for students have adapted to this, which is another reason why skeptics of the
year-round schedule have not changed their minds. They think that all of these opportunities will
disappear if we change the school schedule, but it is more likely that if the schedule changes,
these programs will change with it. Even though the reasoning behind the traditional schedule is
no longer applicable, it has become the status quo in America which makes it hard to change into
something else that may be more logical (Sullivan 396).
The common misconception behind year-round schooling is that it means more days of
schools. In most schools this is not the case. A majority of year-round schedules actually just
rearrange the days that students are in school to make several shorter breaks throughout the year
to take the place of the one long summer break. The two most popular ways that this is done is
the 60/20 schedule, where students will go to school for 60 weeks days and have 20 days of
break, and the 45/15 schedule, where students will have 45 days in school followed by a 15 day

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break (Dessoff 36). The school can also decide whether it wants to be on a single-track or multitrack schedule. A single track is where all of the students would be in session and on break at the
same time. A multi-track system on the other hand is where students would be separated into
different groups and go to school at different times of the year. Some view this option as being
more costly for the school district since they would have to keep the school open for the entire
year as well as paying staff to be there the entire year as well, but the benefit of this is that a
school would be able to hold more students. In fact in some instances this type of schedule has
allowed for districts to raise enrollment by almost 33 percent. Since the school can have more
students enrolled, this type of schedule will actually save the district money over time from not
having to build a new facility for these extra students. (Lyttle 4).
One of the biggest arguments in support of year-round schooling is an increase in
retention of what children have learned. Research on students who are on a traditional schedule
have shown a trend of test scores typically being lower in the fall and higher in the spring
(Sullivan 402). This shows that students are less advanced academically at the beginning of the
school year after a long summer break than at the end. Because of this, researchers have stated
that students are in fact forgetting quite a bit of information over the long break. This trend has
been found to be especially prevalent with students from economically disadvantaged families.
Studies have found that low-income students are able to advance at the same rate as higherincome students during the school year. The time that this gap usually widens though is during
the summer. This is because higher-income students usually have more resources to study or to
assist in their learning during the summer, as opposed to low-income students who typically have
to go without these (Huebner 83). This is why many districts have implemented summer learning
programs and summer school. The problem with these programs is that merely increasing access

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of resources like books to low-income students does not always mean that students will use
them, since these students are more often than not occupied with summer jobs. A lot of schools
have made summer school mandatory for students that are failing or those that are not doing as
well academically. Most would think that because these sessions are monitored by a teacher and
in a structured environment that it would be better off for these students. The truth though is that
a lot of these students will see this as more of a punishment since they are being separated from
their classmates and in return will not learn nearly as much as they would in a different
environment. This is why year-round schooling would be a benefit to these students. It would
provide a chance for them to be with all of their peers and help these students stay in an
educational environment during the summer that does not identify them with a punishment for
failing grades (Sullivan 404). Keeping all of these students together during the summer months
will also promote a positive attitude towards school from all students since no group will be
separated from the rest.
Year-round schooling can raise the attitudes of both students and teachers because of their
more frequent breaks from school. A study surveyed students regarding their attitudes towards
year-round education after one year on a 60-20 calendar. Most of the students said that they felt
more positively about year-round education at the end of the year then they did before school
started (Palmer and Bemis 4). When students have better attitudes towards school, they will
perform better and be more engaged. This will also help relieve extra stress, which will help in
test taking and being an overall better student. More frequent breaks will help teachers' attitudes
as well. Several studies of teachers feelings towards year-round education have been performed.
In these studies it is clear that their attitudes tend to improve the more experience they have with
the different schedule. When year-round teachers took the Elements of Quality survey covering

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such topics as management, community confidence in school, and organization of school, they
scored higher than teachers on a traditional calendar in all areas. Also when questioned about the
schools effectiveness and climate or how the school runs and how people feel in the school,
year-round staff had a more positive attitude than those on a traditional calendar on 15 of the 18
questions (Palmer and Bemis 5). When teachers have a positive attitude towards school that will
rub off on students, so they have a positive attitude too. When teachers have a negative attitude,
that will show, and students will not feel like learning.
Those opposed to the idea of year-round schooling have several reasons behind their
thinking. The first, and the most prevalent issue with year-round schooling is lack of summer
vacation. Parents argue that children need a long break in order to have time to spend with
friends and family and be away from school. There are also arguments that this is a time that
children learn skills they cannot in school such as a summer job, volunteering, or camps and
vacations (Sullivan 410). Some businesses such as pools or summer vacation spots would also
lose revenue due to shrinking summer vacations. Resort and theme park owners in North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Texas in areas where year-round schedules are being
implemented say, As a result of these decreases, many theme parks have been forced to reduce
hours or even close sections of the park. A domino effect causes an economic loss to other
businesses and for the local and state economies." (Sullivan 410). This is mainly blamed on the
fact that most of these types of tourist attractions employ a large amount of students and rely on
families visiting. When it comes down to it though, many people will have to ask themselves if
this is a good enough reason for their children to not advance as much as they could in school. Is
a summer job or family vacation worth a student sliding back academically during the summer?
Also, most year-round schedules make sure that students still get a slightly extended break

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during the summer compared to the other ones throughout the year, so families will still be able
to get time away for a vacation and students will still be able to find jobs.
With research showing that students do in fact lose academic knowledge over the long
summer break, year-round schooling needs to be implemented in communities all over the
country. This will help students retain more information over breaks and help them advance
faster in school. Although things such as summer camps, summer jobs, and socializing with
friends and family are important, we need to look at the main goal we have for students now: to
give them every possible resource we can in order to be successful. In order to do this we need to
change the norm from an outdated nine month school schedule to a more logical and smarter
year-round schedule.

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Works Cited
O'Sullivan, Mary Therese. "The Ten-Month School Year: Are We Ignoring Educational
Research In Order To Preserve Summer Vacation? Finding A Compromise Between
Educational Advancement And Over-Schooling." Brigham Young University Education
& Law Journal 2 (2013): 395-415. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
FRENCH, RON. "Forgoing Summer Vacation, Parents Swamp Year-Round School." Education
Digest 79.4 (2013): 28-30. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
DESSOFF, ALAN. "Is Year-Round Schooling On Track?." District Administration 47.7 (2011):
34-45. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
"Debate." Scholastic News -- Edition 4 76.22 (2014): 15. Education Research Complete. Web. 7
Oct. 2014.
Huebner, Tracy A. "Year-Round Schooling." Educational Leadership 67.7 (2010): 83-84.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
St. Gerard, Vanessa. "Year-Round Schools Look Better All the Time." Education Digest 72.8
(2007): 56-58. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
Palmer, E.A., and Bemis, A.E. "Alternative Calendars: Extended Learning and Year-Round
Programs. University of Minnesota, Center for Applied Research and Educational
Improvement, 1999.