The complaints start coming about midsummer, most parents agree. "There's nothing to do! I'm bored." Yet those are words that Joyce Welch rarely hears. These days, her grandchildren attend Englehard Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., where year-round schooling has been in place for seven years.
Relieving summertime boredom is only one reason schools choose year-round education. Educators who have tried alternative schedules cite many benefits, including happy and focused students and teachers; students who return to school ready to learn; lower student dropout rates and fewer students retained in grade; improved parent involvement; fewer overcrowded classes and buildings; and higher student achievement.
Not 12 Months of School
Schools worldwide strive for these goals. But what is year-round education and how can it help schools? "Year-round education is a change in the school year calendar so the long summer vacation of the traditional school year is reduced to some degree," explains Charles Ballinger, executive director of the National Association for Year-Round Education (NAYRE).
"Actually, the term year-round education is something of a misnomer because it gives the impression that children are in school 12 months out of the year," says Harris Cooper, professor and chair of the department of psychology at the University of Missouri, Columbia. A better term, he suggests, is "modified school calendar, for those instances in which a school or district has done away with the long summer break."
Whatever it is called, year-round education has been around for as long as there have been schools, Cooper says. The traditional nine-month school calendar we know today, note those who study the issue, originated in the early years of the United States when many communities' livelihoods were based on agriculture.
Outside of tradition, that schedule has little validity for modern schools. "There is no curricular or instructional rationale behind the traditional school calendar," Ballinger says.
Community Context
Instead, experts urge, schools should consider what calendars work best for them and their communities. "There is no such thing as a model for year-round schooling because it must adapt to the local context," contends Carolyn Shields, associate professor of educational studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. For example, a First Nation Indian school might plan its breaks during the hunting and fishing seasons. Schools in agrarian communities might take off June and September.
The ways schools can reconfigure their calendars are varied, say experts. In general, however, year-round schools are characterized as single- or multitrack.
According to the NAYRE, a single-track schedule calls for an instructional year of 180 days or more, with short breaks interspersed throughout the year. Experts say that schools usually choose a single-track schedule for the educational benefits it provides students, parents, and the school community, such as improved attendance and focused students and staff.
In multitrack configurations, the student body is divided into three to five groups, or tracks. The instructional and vacation periods of each track are staggered so that at least one group is on vacation at all times. Overcrowded schools usually choose this option because it can increase building capacity from 25 to 50 percent. It also alleviates the need to build costly new buildings, according to NAYRE.
Each configuration—and each school community that practices year-round education—has unique benefits and challenges. The following examples illustrate the experiences of two elementary schools, one on a single- and one on a multitrack schedule.
It's About Time
About seven years ago, staff members at Englehard Elementary School were disappointed in student test scores. "We knew we had great kids, parents, and staff," remembers the school's principal, Theresa Jensen. "We needed to find out why our children were not succeeding academically."
The school staff surveyed the school community, asking What are the barriers to student success at our school? As they grouped the responses, says Jensen, they saw that "people were seeing time as a barrier, not as a resource." For example, teachers noted that they were spending too much time reviewing material at the beginning of the school year.
In fact, extensive review in September is a common feature—and complaint—in many schools, say experts. "Research shows a loss in skill areas of math and spelling over the summer break," says Ballinger.
After studying how to use their time more wisely, the Englehard Elementary School community designed and voted to approve a calendar that put the school in session between the first week of August and the last week of June. They follow the district calendar for winter and spring breaks, teachers' professional development days, and other holidays. Depending on the number of district holidays per year, the school extends about 25 days beyond the 177 school days required by the county.
As part of the new schedule, the school decided to dedicate Tuesday through Friday of each week to teaching its core curriculum. Mondays are optional for students and staff, although most students and about half of the staff attend, explains Jensen.
On Mondays, the school offers remediation and enrichment activities such as tutoring, field trips, programs with visiting artists, team sports, and drug awareness assemblies. "Without this schedule, we couldn't send kids to see a ballet because it would cut into their language arts time," says Jensen.
Teachers who choose to work on all or some Mondays are compensated. Peg Kemmerer, a reading teacher who has taught at Englehard for 23 years, happily admits that she "does not set foot in the school on Mondays." Instead she uses the long weekend to spend time with her five grandchildren. She schedules doctor appointments on Mondays, "which benefits students, because as good as the subs are, it isn't the same as having us in the class."
Having Mondays off is a wonderful option for Kemmerer, but she knows it isn't for everyone. Other teachers enjoy working Mondays because "it gives them extra time to reinforce skills and to be with students in a more casual setting," she says.
Treasuring Every Moment
In addition to providing options for teachers, "we've seen tremendous results during the past six years our school has been on its revised calendar," says Jensen. Student attendance has risen from 92 to 96 percent, and the school boasts the highest staff attendance in the district. Student test scores during the past three years are among the highest in the state, resulting in financial bonuses for teachers.
Most important, "we see kids every day, so we are more on top of how they are doing in school and of their general welfare," Jensen notes.
Overall, the school climate is relaxed yet focused. "It's hard to put quantitative measures on some of these benefits," says Jensen. "But they all have an impact on what you can measure quantitatively."
"When you think of time as a resource, you treasure it," Jensen explains. "And when you treasure every moment, you make the most of those moments."
Looking for Space
For many schools, making the most of their time depends on making the most of their space. Central Elementary School in San Diego, Calif., was built to hold 800 children. However, more than 1,500 students currently attend the school. The school can accommodate its students and staff—plus offer adult education and Head Start programs—because it operates on a multitrack configuration.
When principal Elaine Arm arrived at the school five years ago, she found a school facing the same challenges of many urban schools, including poverty, limited English proficiency, and high staff turnover. A veteran principal who had already converted three schools to single-track schedules, she knew the benefits that year-round education could offer.
After working with staff and parents to decide how best to improve student achievement and the school community, Central Elementary School moved to a single-track schedule. "But that didn't solve the overcrowding issues," says Arm.
After reviewing the options, including sending 5th graders to the middle school or busing children to a school outside the neighborhood, the school community voted to go on a multitrack schedule. "Multitrack is really a variation of single track," says Arm. Teachers and students see only a single track—and the people who are hit the hardest are the administrators, admits Arm. "You have to be a workaholic who loves challenges to make multitrack work."
One important issue administrators of multitrack schools face is how to assign students and teachers to tracks. "There are myriad ways to do it: geographically, by grade level, or randomly. The important thing when making scheduling decisions affecting people and programs is to be equitable," says Anthony Garcia, a veteran year-round educator and director of certificated recruitment and selection for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
For example, at a high school where Garcia was principal, there were only 40 African American students, all of whom lived in the same neighborhood. He broke the group into three, so the African Americans were represented in each of the school's three tracks. Likewise, "you want to build a comprehensive program in each track to include offerings for gifted, industrial arts," and other programs, Garcia explains.
Another issue is families with more than one child at the school or in schools on different schedules. At Central Elementary School, the staff voted to allow parents with three or more children to be assigned tracks first so their children could be on the same schedule.
Flexibility is a must for teachers who work in a school that has a multitrack schedule. "When you have 45 classrooms and 63 teachers, some teachers will have to move from classroom to classroom," Arm says. The teachers at Central worked out a rotating schedule designating which teachers would be "roving." Arm had cabinets built as storage space and bought extra custodial time so teachers have help moving their classroom items at the end and beginning of each session. To keep morale high, she also provides perks, such as no yard duty.
Resistance to Change
No matter what schedule schools choose, the biggest resistance to year-round education comes from the fear of change, say experts. Involving stakeholders, planning carefully, and communicating are key to successfully instituting year-round schooling.
For example, families often worry about child care. One solution is for school leaders to communicate with day care and youth activity providers, who are often willing to accommodate the school schedule, say experts. "We've been so used to one system that we assume others won't change—and we don't even ask them," Garcia says.
In the end, parents and educators have nothing to fear, says Joyce Welch, the grandmother quoted at the beginning of this article. "Year-round education works for students, emotionally and academically."