How do you feel about year round school?

[acmom]

The thread about beginning and ending school dates got me thinking about year round school. I have never taught at a school with it and my kids are in a preschool with a traditional sept-June schedule.

If you have experience with year round school as a parent or teacher,how do you feel about it? Which would you prefer given a choice?

[crl]

I was a student in a year round school for three years in grade school and I loved it.

Catherine

[kdeunc]

I would LOVE the option. Unfortunately not an option in my county. :(

[georgiegirl]

I would love it. But it's not an option here.

[Nooknookmom]

Awful to me. When does a kid get to be a kid and enjoy summer vacation?

Our district has already squeezed it from 3 months to two. It's going to get shorter so I hear.

Not happy about it.

[chozen]

Awful to me. When does a kid get to be a kid and enjoy summer vacation?

Our district has already squeezed it from 3 months to two. It's going to get shorter so I hear.

Not happy about it.

i agree! i don't like the idea.

[niccig]

I grew up in Australia and we had 6 weeks for summer vacation. It always felt like plenty of time to me. I'm sure you get used to what you have. People here are used to longer summer vacation so anything shorter feels wrong.

[Pennylane]

We had it in NC and I loved it! I think it works well with younger children and I know after 3 weeks of track out my dc were ready to go back to school. I didn't work, so it was not an issue for me, but my friends who did work never had a problem with it. There were tons of camps and different track out activities planned. I loved that we could go to the beach in off season and Disney when it was not crowded.

We are now in traditional school and I hate how everything is so crowded because all the kids are out of school at the same times. My dc miss the breaks every 9 weeks too!

If I had a choice, I would choose year round.

Ann

[georgiegirl]

I'd love to be able to take vacations at non-peak times. My husband can only get off over the winter holidays and spring break every 2-3 years. If we had year round school, then it would be easier to take family vacations without pulling the kids out of school.

And I like the continuity of learning.

[waver]

:yeahthat:

Also I think there is research to show that children, especially children who are already lagging behind in school, forget more of what they learned during the longer summer breaks.

I would love to have more breaks, and longer breaks, interspersed during a year round school. I heard the breaks in my area are 2-3 weeks, in Oct, Dec, Feb, April, and then the entire month of July off.

[hellokitty]

I would love it if we had yr round school. However, I don't know of any schools in my state with that option.

[katydid1971]

I use to teach in a year round school and loved it. I wish they did it here, I would love to have DC in one.

[buddyleebaby]

I think I would like it if we lived somewhere with a mild climate. However, we live somewhere that is fairly miserable from October-May. :rotflmao:Having to be in school for those precious few months of nice weather would be a form of torture, I think.

[crl]

Awful to me. When does a kid get to be a kid and enjoy summer vacation?

Our district has already squeezed it from 3 months to two. It's going to get shorter so I hear.

Not happy about it.

But year round school gets just as much time off, it is just distributed differently. I really liked the shorter, more frequent breaks.

I do think it gets to be difficult at the high school level with no summer break for jobs and such.

Catherine

[baymom]

I would LOVE an year round school schedule, but their school is on the traditional calendar. Kids spend less time reviewing (IMO) and also our family could travel in the off season. DS is likely transferring to another school in our district next year that is year round, but we won't get the off season travel benefit since DD will still be traditional.

[kijip]

I think research shows that while middle class kids whose parents have finished at least some college tend to get a fair bit out of summer, summer is a really big set back educationally for low income students and students whose parents did not graduate from high school. In many cities, low income students comprise the majority of the student body population. It comes down to resources and the educational strength of the home (number of books, amount of time spent reading etc).

I like the idea of year round schooling as a means to lower the education gap or perhaps just a quality summer program available for free or low cost for students.

My aunt complained for years about the year round schooling where she lived but her primary issue was not that it was year-round but that they had schools and students on many different schedules. So her twin daughters were NEVER off at the same time as their older brother except for a short time around Christmas. That seems insane to me. They had no time for a 1-2 week family vacation without pulling 1 or more kids from school. Crazy.

[roseyloxs]

Love it! The German schedule goes year around. There is a decent summer break, 2 week Xmas break and a bunch of holidays throughout the year. The school day also seems to be a couple hours shorter then an American schoolday.

I am a SAHM so its not so much about the convenience I just enjoy the routine of a year round schedule.

[TwinFoxes]

I would love it. Like PP, I'd love to travel at off-peak times. It seems like kids get bored 1/2 way through summer anyway, although I have not BTDT yet.

[brittone2]

I would like it as an option if we used PS. Because I have 3 kids with about a 3 year gap in between each one, my only hesitation would be if they were in different schools with different schedules.

We HS year-round and love the flexibility it gives us. We take off when the grandparents visit, we vacation at off peak times, etc.

[carolinamama]

DS1 was in year round for K last year. We moved to a magnet school with a traditional schedule this year and I miss it. It was so nice to have those 3 week breaks throughout the year instead of one huge one. We could travel at off times or times that were even better for where we were going. I am already trying to figure out what DS1 will be doing this summer and budget for it. With 3 kids of different ages, it puts more pressure on me to put activities together that are somewhat appropriate for a 7 yo, 4 yo, and 1 yo. I think I will enjoy it for about 2 weeks and then DS1 and I will be ready for something more structured. With year round, 3 week breaks were easy to fill with a few day trips, a family trip, some playdates, and maybe a week of track out camp. DS1 certainly had plenty of down time to just enjoy things.

In our area (immediate neighborhood at least) all the schools are year round, minus magnet, private, or charter. Our neighborhood schools are pretty decent so the vast majority use them. It is a very transient area and most have come from areas without year round. Still, they are very happy with the schedule. It helps when all your kids are on the same schedule of course and until high school, it is that way.

I really feel like the kids do not miss as much instructional time since there isn't that big leadup to summer break and then getting back into the routine. The kids have 1 week off between the end of one grade and the start of another.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I like the idea but it sounds hard as working parents if the whole community isn't set up to support that schedule. If all schools are on that schedule then camps would be available or other full day care resources. Otherwise, I don't know how the logistics work out.

[momtoonegirl]

My DD is in year round school. There are three in our district. She doesn't know any different since she has been going year round since preschool (she is in 1st grade now). Preschool and kindergarten were at Montessori, and she is currently in our neighborhood public school. Since she is on the same academic schedule as most of her peers, she is unaware that most kids have 3 months off for summer vacation (she has 5 weeks off).

I like the non-traditional schedule, mostly because DH and I basically have to schedule time off except for major holidays. It is easier for us to actually get our vacation requests when they are at different times than our coworkers. DD also attends a before/after care facility, where they provide a "day camp" for scheduled fall, winter, spring, and summer vacations when either DH and/or I are working. I cannot wait until DS is able to go to this school.

[vonfirmath]

Awful to me. When does a kid get to be a kid and enjoy summer vacation?

Instead of enjoying summer vacation, in year round school, they get to enjoy a longer break every 9 weeks. It helps with remembering what they learn and not going so far backward.

My son was anxious to go back to school this morning after just 3 weeks off school. I think that year round school would be fabulous for us.

It might cause some problems with working out schedules with folks in other areas of the country who aren't on the same schedule though.

[Pennylane]

I like the idea but it sounds hard as working parents if the whole community isn't set up to support that schedule. If all schools are on that schedule then camps would be available or other full day care resources. Otherwise, I don't know how the logistics work out.

I think if your area offered year round school, then the camps and day care would offer track out camps. Not all schools in our area were year round and trust me, there was tons of options for camps and day cares. Most of my friends did work and they had so many choices for their dc.

Ann

[jse107]

I would love it, for all the reasons already listed.

[brittone2]

I think if your area offered year round school, then the camps and day care would offer track out camps.

:yeahthat: WHen we were in NC this was very common.

[westwoodmom04]

I would love it. Our kids have about 10 weeks of summer and they start to get bored the last month. Plus, so much time is spent early in the year redoing what they learned right before summer break.

[khalloc]

I would not be a fan. I live in Northern Vermont and summertime is the best time of year here. Kids should be off from school then and spending time outdoors since the nice weather here is so limited to June - August. Not that May cant be nice, buts its still chilly then usually and very muddy. If I lived in the southern US where the temps are warmer year round I might be OK with year-round school, but not in places where the winter and much of the spring are very cold and wet.

[vonfirmath]

I would not be a fan. I live in Northern Vermont and summertime is the best time of year here. Kids should be off from school then and spending time outdoors since the nice weather here is so limited to June - August. Not that May cant be nice, buts its still chilly then usually and very muddy. If I lived in the southern US where the temps are warmer year round I might be OK with year-round school, but not in places where the winter and much of the spring are very cold and wet.

Ah. In our case (Texas) I'd much rather (for weather reasons) my son be IN School during the summer and out in APril-May and late Sept-October.

[carolinamama]

I like the idea but it sounds hard as working parents if the whole community isn't set up to support that schedule. If all schools are on that schedule then camps would be available or other full day care resources. Otherwise, I don't know how the logistics work out.

I actually think that if there are year round schools, the camps and childcare are there. Demand = Supply, at least here in NC. And it can definitely be easier for working parents, not harder - there really aren't any randomly scheduled teacher work days the way there are in traditional. It seems like this year in a regular schedule we are constanly having workdays, but in year round, the work days are built into the trackout time so no scramble to fill those days.

I will admit too that I'm one who thinks that our school calendar in the US needs more time in school, not less, primarily because of the post Katie made upthread. My kids (and those of the parents on this board) are being supplemented when not in school, but kids of less educated parents are not. Therefore, I don't see the necessity of a long summer break. I may feel differently when my kids are older, but I would think that a longer year would mean that not so much work and pressure would be crammed into their school days. But I digress....

[AngB]

We purposely avoided houses in the district next to ours that had year round schooling. I would have hated it, my teacher friend loved it except she hated not having much of a real summer.

The district ultimately went to a traditional schedule last year, it saved them millions (not having to keep the buildings ac'd through the summer, etc.) People there must have liked it because there was a huge outcry over it. I think if year round school is going to cost more money, as was the case here, with all the budget cuts it is likely there will be fewer and fewer districts keeping year round schedules.

[mommylamb]

I so wish we had year round school with more frequent breaks throughout the year. Summer is a really long time for them to be off and my DS1 does much better with the structure of school-- and loves school. I'm already trying to cobble together camp schedule for this summer.

[anonomom]

DD1 is in a traditional school, but the threat of reassignment to a year-round school is a constant for my neighborhood. There are some people here who would pull their kids from public school rather than put them in year-round; I wouldn't go that far, but some things about year-round give me pause.

I think that for me, the 9 weeks on/3 weeks off schedule would feel really disjointed. And I really don't like that the kids we know in year round switch classrooms every time they track back in. Their daily schedules change, too, because the specials teachers (art, music, etc.) aren't necessarily on the same track and are unavailable for parts of the year. It just seems unnecessarily disruptive. Not to mention that once DD1 hit High School, our kids would spend the next seven years on different schedules. That's a long time to go without a family vacation.

Finally, for us, it would mean seeing much less of our family then we do now. My SIL and her family live in CA; they visit here the same two weeks every year and have since long before DD was born. If we switched to year-round, only one track is out over those two weeks, so we'd have a 75% chance of either missing them completely or having to pull DD out of school to see her cousins. I know, first world problem, but it would still suck.

[kijip]

Like Beth, we homeschool year round. T even does some light school work on some holidays because when we're home, the consistency is good. Love the flexibility with vacations.

[bisous]

I think research shows that while middle class kids whose parents have finished at least some college tend to get a fair bit out of summer, summer is a really big set back educationally for low income students and students whose parents did not graduate from high school. In many cities, low income students comprise the majority of the student body population. It comes down to resources and the educational strength of the home (number of books, amount of time spent reading etc).

I like the idea of year round schooling as a means to lower the education gap or perhaps just a quality summer program available for free or low cost for students.


I love this idea! My mom and sister both work with lower income students and the quality of home life and access to books, materials etc is strikingly different from the homes we (this board) come from.

[mom2binsd]

I have worked in a year round school in Utah, not all the schools were year round, but there were plenty of camps/child care options for the year round families.

In almost all year round schools, there is a time when ALL tracks are off.

From an educators standpoint, I really like it, it means much less loss over the long summer and it can really have a positive impact on lower SES students, but at our school we didn't have parents transferring out of our school to a neighboring one that was traditional.

My kids are on year round, and I would be fine with switching, not sure if I'd feel the same way if I'd never "seen it in action" but after working within the year round system I see it's benefits.

[glbb35]

I would love it also. I used to be against it especially when I taught school (traditional) in first year of teaching. I wanted that summer break. I taught in a really poor county and after just one year year I began to get warned up to the idea. Honestly spending most of the month of September reviewing is ridiculous but you have to do it to get all the kids on a more level playing field. My 2nd year of teaching our principal put me on a Year Round School committee as she knew I wasn't in favor of it. After being on the committee for 6 months I completely changed my mind. Educationally it is a fact that students loose quite a bit of information during a long summer break. Many do nothing educationally especially in the disadvantaged areas around the country. So teachers spend the month of September reviewing. By May they are done and know that summer is coming so again, they are done. So instead of going to school and actually learning something Sept- June, you basically learn from Oct-May. IT is no wonder our school systems are 39th in the world.

Businesses will meet the needs of the demand as posted. And it is actually cheaper to run a school year round as the counties completely close some schools for the time they are out and save money. You have to run a school during the summer for the staff that is there and summer programs. You can turn off systems for the hallways and back classrooms to not "waste" that electricity but in reality you are spending more money. Keeping the office and front areas of the school means you are running full all the time as it isn't like the cool air will stop mid way down a hallway and the hot air won't come forward. Read the data from systems who run year round. They do actually save money and their kids are typically doing better than areas where they don't go year round.

Change is hard for anyone but if we want our children to compete internationally we need to get with the program. Ours schools are so behind and it is actually embarrassing. We have some European friends who just roll their eyes when we talk education. Their kids are doing far more and are far superior to mine. In our state we have several districts that have moved to yr round and even schools within districts that have moved to a year round system and love it.

Around here there are so many kids who miss school due to family vacations around the holidays and during the fall and spring months. Many kids around here will go on ski holidays in February and March and miss a week or two of school. They will take extra days off around spring break as not all families can take vacations in the summer so when do you take them? DH's office last year had to limit how many people could actually take a summer vacation with their families as that is when most everyone wants to leave. Talk about being bad for business. So now it is a first come first serve thing and people are getting mad. If you can't take a vacation during the summer b/c the office would be empty then you are forced to take it during the school year and miss a lot of school. Being a small business owner though I understand that you can't close your office during the summer.

I totally see the whole living in VT and TX thing as far as the weather. In VT maybe you need a long break in the fall and a long break in the spring. The same with TX. My family is from TX originally and nothing is worse that the summers!

I wish our county would look at possibly going year round. I would be all for it. I would love to have more breaks with my kids where we could see and do different things in different seasons instead of trying to pack it in during the worst months of the year. It would be great too as then I wouldn't have to do so much review throughout the summer! Until then we were take frequent breaks throughout the school year and that is just how it has to be. We are doing that this spring as DH doesn't think but a handful will get some break time over the summer.

Just my opinion.

B

DS 03, 06, twins 09, 11

[anonomom]

glbb (and other YR fans), I'm curious -- are your high schools also year round? I think my biggest worry about year round would disappear if all the schools my kids attended were on the same schedule. But here, only elementary and middle schools are YR; the high schools are all traditional and 100% going to stay that way.

[momtoonegirl]

glbb (and other YR fans), I'm curious -- are your high schools also year round? I think my biggest worry about year round would disappear if all the schools my kids attended were on the same schedule. But here, only elementary and middle schools are YR; the high schools are all traditional and 100% going to stay that way.

The high schools are all on a traditional schedule. Most likely will remain as such due to extracurricular/sport schedules and summer school. The only way I could see it changing if there were more parental demand for a year round schedule at the upper grade levels. If it were to pass at the high school level, only one school (out of four total) would probably switch.

[khalloc]

I dont know. In VT I think a long fall break would be useless - you cant ski, you cant swim. You'd have to fly somewhere for warm weather. And alot of Vermonters dont have money for vacations like that.

A long spring break would be pretty pointless too. Its not warm and sunny here in the spring. Its chilly and raw. The flowers arent blooming nicely like they are in places like Boston. Instead you are wearing mud boots daily because everything is muddy from all of the snow melting. Summer is key here.

I'm not opposed to longer school years either, I just think the chunk of time off needs to occur in the summer. I hate winters though. Besides schools up here arent usually air conditioned. So it would be pretty miserable on a hot humid day to be stuck at school.

[Momit]

I kind of like the European model of a 6 week summer break and several long breaks throughout the year.

[smilequeen]

I think it would be better, but I'm OK either way. We have fun doing a lot of camps and activities during the summer, but it would be so fun to have longer vacations at different times of year and not have such a long vacation to lose some of what they learned.

[KonzaPrairie]

So I had not really given any thought to YR schooling (my DD is only 14 months!) and I only heard about it recently. When I read OP's initial post my reaction was "no way, that sounds terrible!" but after reading through the responses I have changed my mind. Now I'm on the search to find out if any schools in my area do this...