Year Round Education EDLE 6322 Summer 2012

1. Is Year-Round Education Right For Your School? By: Kate Terry Year Round EducationEDLE 6322 Summer 2012

2. What Does Year-Round Education Look Like? • Year-round schools operate on the same 180 day system; however, they have more shorter breaks spread throughout the year versus a longer summer vacation. • Popular Structures: • 45-15 Plan • 60-20 Plan • 5 nine-week terms with mini breaks • 4-5 week summer break with intercessions in October, January, and April

3. Multi-Track v/s Single-Track • Single-Track – This plan is the more popular of the two because it does not add any days to the school year. Instead, it just incorporates the mini-breaks into the calendar year. • Multi-Track – Teachers and students are divided into multiple groups. One group of students and teachers will be on mini-break while other groups are in the classroom and then they switch. This plan is typically chosen by schools with overcrowding issues.

4. Statistics • As of February 2012, 3, 181 schools in the U.S. operate under the year-round calendar. This is approximately 10% of the public schools in the country. • Traditional schools have a 5% dropout rate while year-round schools only have a 2% dropout rate. • In a study conducted, 49.7% of educators were in favor of year-round education. • In a study conducted between 6 elementary schools, year-round schools had a 10.05 math gain and 10.52 reading gain while traditional schools only had a 7.71 math gain and 8.91 reading gain.

5. Benefits to Year-Round Education • Creates a more continuous learning environment. • Students forget a lot of information over the long summer break; therefore, with year-round education teachers can cut down the amount of review time needed. • Use mini-breaks to help disadvantaged students catch up. • Keeps students and teachers from becoming burned out. • Eliminates parents trying to determine where their kids will stay over the summer break. • Be more in-line with other countries. • Can help with overcrowding in growing areas. • Multi-track, year-round schools can accommodate 20-33% more students • Can have a positive impact on the nutrition of children. • Teachers can make more income and evaluate and restructure their class throughout the year.

6. Negative Issues with Year-Round Education • Teachers may not be able to continue their own education unless in-house training is offered. • Having children at different schools on different calendar schedules. • Timber Lane Elementary Study • Extracurricular activities may be interrupted or fall by the wayside. • Students can not work during the summer to help their families financially. • Curriculum can be negatively impacted. • Students from several grades combined into one class. • Break up sequenced courses. • Students and teachers may become burned out.

7. Is Student Achievement Improved? • No clear findings, most articles were inconclusive. • “A review of 39 studies found that modified school calendars have a very small, insignificant, effect (either positive or negative) on achievement (Cooper, 2003).” • Study by Weaver, 3 of 5 schools found student achievement improved by year-round education, while 2 found it to lower achievement. (Weaver, 1996) • Students lose 2 months of achievement in math due to the “summer slide” and low-income families lose 2 months of reading as well (Dessoff, 2011.) • “One of the methodological problems with many of the studies, whatever their conclusions, is the difficultly of isolating the variable of school calendar in relation to student achievement (Naylor, 1995).” • “If educational achievement is improved, why are year-round schools not mandated for all communities, and not just for those which are economically deprived? Why do such a miniscule number of private schools (0.0015%) initiate year round calendars (Naylor, 1995)?”

8. Are Teachers More Satisfied In A Year-Round School? • Study conducted at Timber Lane Elementary School with teachers that had taught in both a traditional and year-round setting: • Teachers really enjoyed having intersession courses so they could teach and make more money. • Enjoyed teaching “fun” intersession courses, such as photography, where they did not have to worry about standardized tests and set curriculum. • Teachers liked the fact that they could work part-time and only teach intersession classes. • Found they had less stress. • “On the traditional calendar, I was wiped out by April. To do a good job as a teacher took a lot out of me; I even thought of early retirement. Now, on the year-round education cycle, I get systematic breaks, the kids get breaks from me, and we’re ready to work together again.” • Teacher preparation throughout the year.

9. Does A Year-Round Calendar Save Money? • Yes. According to a study conducted in Florida, Marion County Public Schools switched to the multi-track year-round schedule and were able to accommodate 25% more students (Parrish, 1989). In turn, this saved them approximately $12 million dollars because they were going to have to add on to their current building due to overcrowding. Since the teachers still taught the same number of days, no additional cost were incurred in salary. • No. When a school switches to a single-track year-round schedule there may be additional cost incurred. For example, if the school offers remedial classes during the mini-breaks, they will have to pay teachers an additional salary plus the utility costs to keep the school operating year-round. According to Bardstown schools in Kentucky, it cost an additional $5,000 per year to operate under a year-round calendar. They wanted to offer remedial classes and child-care programs during the intercessions so they had to pay to keep the buses running year-round.

10. In closing • From my research, I feel that the most important thing when adapting a year-round schedule is to gain the support of teachers, parents, and the community. Without that support, I do not feel that a year-round schedule will be successful. Also the school should determine the reason for switching. Is it to cut cost, improve student achievement, or a combination of reasons? The school should also look at its own unique situation including how many low-income families they have or how many non-English speaking students attend. All of these factors will come into play when deciding if year-round education is the best fit. There is substantial evidence supporting both sides and I feel that year-round education may be the best choice for some schools while a traditional calendar year may be better for others.

11. References • Cooper, H., Valentine, J.C., Charlton, K., Melson, A. (2003). The Effects of Modified School Calendars on Student Achievement and on School and Community Attitudes. Review of Educational Research, 73 (1). • Dessoff, A. (2011). Is Year-Round Schooling on Track?. District Administration, 47(7), 34-45. • Gismondi Haser, S., & Nasser, I. (2003, May). Teacher job satisfaction in a year-round school. Educational Leadership, 60, 65-68. • Morin, Amanda (2011). The Pros and Cons of Year Round School. Retrieved from http://childparenting.about.com/od/schoollearning/a/year-round-school-pros-cons.htm • Naylor, Charlie (1995). Do year-round schools improve student learning? An annotated bibliography and synthesis of the research. BCTF Research Report, Section XII, 95-EI-03. • Parrish, Carole A. (1989). Year-Round Schooling Makes Financial and Economic Sense. The American School Board Journal, Vol. 176, No. 10, pp.34-37. • Springer, J. (2010). Obama: Money without reform won’t fix school system. TODAY. Retrieved from http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39378576 • Weaver, Tyler (1992). Year-Round Education. ERIC Digest, Number 68. • Year-round school. (2012, July 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Year-round_school&oldid=501014914 • Year-Round School Statistics. Statistic Brain. Retrieved July 2012, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/year-round-school-statistics/