Sports and Year-Round Schools

My kid went to a year-round school for three years. We didn't really notice a difference in the educational quality either way. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, and we're not big vacationers, so the impact on our lives was pretty minimal.

I agree with I Digress; the way Florida schedules its students makes very little sense, generally speaking.

 

My district has enough problems scheduling 180 days. I can't imagine they would be too eager to schedule for another three months.

When I was a kid, we had a half-day of school for the first day to meet our teachers, and a half-day on the last day to get our report cards and say goodbye. In high school, we had a few days devoted to finals where if you only had one final, you had a half-day.

Now, my elementary-age kids have two half-days in the beginning of the year, and 5 half-days at the end of the year. And that's not counting the two weeks before school ends, when the kids go on a bunch of field trips and spend most of their classroom time watching movies.

And throw in a bunch of half-days for 'Staff Development Day' and 'Superintendent Conference Day' and 'Parent Conference Day', which conveintly are scheduled for Mondays or Fridays, it's a miracle any kids learn anything.

 

The biggest knock against summer breaks is students waste a few weeks every year in September "getting back into the groove" of learning.

Think of what an NFL training camp would look like if coaches were able to keep the players conditioned all year. Year-round schools keep children in learning mode year round. There is no "summer regression." But you also have negatives like Smash pointed out. In a perfect world children would have a Tom Sawyer type of environment in the summer where they can learn and become more socially independent. But the hard truth is many children depend on schools for their only two decent meals of the day, and losing this nutrition for a few months at a time can have a very negative effect.

I'm also pretty sure year-round schools are more cost effective because you do not have to have so many square feet of buildings to educate children. Think about it. What business builds 300,000-square-foot office buildings and leave them empty for two months of the year? You also need fewer buses and the need for substitute teachers vanishes since teachers who are on break are always looking for extra cash so they can sub. Many year-round districts will teacher 80% of the students and keep 20% on a break.

Cadet, your points in the first post and athletics are brilliant. The only think I would counter with is seniors would need to graduate after their season ends. Having a graduated player still playing for a school is a big potential problem. So could schools have a graduation on August 1st? Sure, why not? I really do not think college admission hinges on actually graduating high school since that is an assumed given.

There are other reasons for and against year round schools, but they are not popping into my head right now.

Oh, some parents fucking hate (hate like a f'ing sickness) year-round schooling, and they will fight you to the death on it.

 

I would think some teachers would fight this as well. Most of the teachers I know count on that summer break for a range of things. Some need to recharge their batteries. Some use it to re-examine their lesson plans, something they really don't have time to do during the school year. Some work as camp counselors to supplement their income.

Would teachers be compensated for the loss of summer vacations? Teachers who currently get extra money from summer school, tutoring or working at camps would suddenly lose an important benefit.

I have heard a lot about the difficulties many schools have finding and keeping good teachers. I'm guessing a year-round schooling would make that even more difficult. And with all due respect to Cadet, sports schedules do not strike me as a good reason to make such a change.

 

One of the school districts near me is eliminating year-round schools. My sister-in-law works in the office of an elementary school and she said it's for financial reasons. She loves the year-round school because she gets frequent breaks. She isn't happy about going back to the "traditional" school year, but she has no choice.

 

Oop hit it on the head. Think it's tough finding teachers now, wait until you take away their summers off.

 

That raises another issue. Keeping those buildings open and operating year round is more expensive, even if a district were to somehow make the switch without raising teacher salaries (good luck having that fight with the unions).

 

A lot of what people on here are talking about our year-one problems. Kids having the whole summer off, daycare, teachers' summer plans and the like take care of themselves very quickly, and it just becomes "what we do."
I went to modified year-round school throughout high school. Modified, because we were all on the same schedule. Started the last week of July, with a two-week break after each nine weeks. We ended the same time as the rest of the county high schools, giving us a seven-week summer.
I didn't care at all. That probably had a bit to do with the fact that my summer and fall break were spent playing football.
In the spring, when we had a three-week spring break (our two, plus the county-mandated one), I had a grand ol' time. Lots of NCAA tournament hoops and, later, sleeping with my girlfriend.
That may be the only reason not to do this, Cadet. Teenagers+cars+extended times without parental supervision=babies.

 

When I left Florida to take a job out west after college, all the school districts down here were touting the benefits of year-round schools. By the time I came back, year-round schooling had been abandoned — maybe to save money because I can't think of any other reason. God knows the idiots in the legislature would love to cut even more and have 60 kids to a classroom but the voters put class-size limitations into the state constitution to prevent just that.

 

It's not tough finding teachers. The teaching job market has a glut similar to the journalism job market.

 

I think financing it is the No. 1 reason why the U.S. will not embrace year-round schooling any time soon.... many teachers are on 10 month contracts.....if that is extended to 12 month, so would the rate of pay. Now, I think that for the most part teachers are horrendously underpaid, but I know that not everyone believes that. Right now, I'm not sure there are many districts in the country that could absorb that kind of pay hike.

 

With the current financial crisis, yes. But just two years ago states were screaming bloody murder about when the boomers retire. When (if) the economy bounces back, we'll be back in the same boat.