Sports and Year-Round Schools

Teachers are under contract for 195-200 days each year. That would not change with year-round or summers off contracts.

Summer now is 10 weeks off. It really is not as long as you think.

 

Perhaps where you are.. where I am.. the terms are either 10 months or 12 months... there are some 'full-time, year-round.'' I know this because I have teachers who have told me.

 

If they make 36k a year, they can have 10 checks of $3,600 or 12 checks of $3,000. It's still the same money.

 

In Texas, high school sports are almost year-round. The baseball playoffs last into mid-June, and two-a-day football practices start the first Monday in August.

The state legislature pushed back hard against year-round schools a couple of years ago. They passed a law that schools cannot start classes until the last week of August. Some Metroplex schools like Keller and Allen had been starting as early as August 2.

 

I just had a conversation about this with a school board member here a week or so ago, because the school district proposed to return a local elementary school from a year-round schedule to a traditional 9-month calendar as a budget cutting move, and there was a huge public outcry against the move. A vast majority of parents and students in year round schools here prefer them once they get into the schedule.
As far as athletics, this school board member told me athletics are the reason high schools here will never go to a year-round schedule, because they don't want athletes competing during the time their track is off. He said they can not be required to attend mandatory activities during a non school session, and playing or practicing during the weeks their track is on break is the same as doing it during the current summer break.

 

The state I teach in is aiming to cut down the number of referrals to special ed. Schools are now required to prove that they provided interventions to potential special ed candidates before those kids are put in the special ed programs.

One solution to providing the extra support without students missing any classroom instruction is a modified year-round schedule. During the two to three-week breaks (and six weeks in the summer) these students would be offered free tutoring/reading support for one to two weeks. One nearby district also offers enrichment activities to families wiling to pay for it. They sent a group of middle school students to Space Camp last year.

Most primary teachers I know are all for year-round schooling. We don't have to spend the first month of school reviewing the previous grade because of over the summer memory loss and the kids don't lose the often badly needed structure that school provides.

 

In Michigan recently, the Legislature mandated that schools in the state cannot start after Labor Day (an asinine idea that someone came up with in a misguided attempt to protect the summer tourism dollar). I'd love year-round schooling, if for no other reason then we could have a real spring sports season, as opposed to a month of half-thawed golf and track (which are the only sports in which something resembling a season can be completed between the time the snow melts and the end of school).

 

I Should Coco beat me to it.
I played four sports during high school in Iowa -- football, basketball, track and baseball. Never thought anything of it. I was amazed when I moved to Ohio and found out baseball and softball compete in the spring here, along with track.
We played almost all of our games at night, under the lights, with a JV game beforehand. I never had a baseball game postponed or called on account of snow. We also didn't start our post-season during the middle of the regular-season, like they do here in Ohio (sectional games start in mid-May, and are worked in around the remaining regular-season games).
And, yes, I was one of those guys who played high school ball after "graduating" from eighth grade. Iowa also has Pony League ball for seventh and eighth graders, but I moved to the town after the cutoff date my eighth grade year so my only choice was high school.

 

Depends on where you are geographically ...

Most southern states are hiring unlicensed teachers because there's such a shortage. In a lot of northern & midwestern states, there is a glut.

Also, teach math/science, you can pretty much name your job. Teach social studies (like I do), and it's very difficult to find work unless the word "coach" is attached to your resume. I've found that, at least in these parts, English teachers are pretty much in equilibrium.

The other dirty secret is that a lot of teachers are close to retirement.

 

I wouldn't object to a year-round school sports schedule. makes a lot more sense than, say, having swimming as a winter sport.

You could take extended breaks between seasons and maybe a month between spring/summer and the start of fall sports. In markets where school sports are dominant, i always found it weird that there was such a drop-off in the summer.

 

In these prep-dominated markets with small staffs, when do you propose you take vacations?

 

Sports writers on small staffs take vacations? Nobody told me. I've been missing out!