History of YRE
The traditional school calendar has been in effect for more than a century. By the middle of the nineteenth century rural areas the school year lasted for five to six months, based on the harvest schedule. In contrast, many schools in urban areas were open for eleven or twelve months. A uniform calendar was established in 1847 that is the traditional calendar of today. (Shields, 2000) There was resistance to this calendar from the beginning; people in urban areas had to go to school from much longer to receive the same education. YRE began in a premature form in 1904 in Bluffton, Indiana with a four-quarter schedule. (Speck, n.d.) YRE began to be popular in states like Texas, New Jersey, North Dakota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. It ceased during WWII because national uniformity was felt to be essential to the war effort. Hayward, CA implemented at official YRE programs at Park Elementary School in 1968 to become the first YRE school after WWII. (Speck, n.d.) YRE schools began to sprout up all over the country after that. In 1969 the first multiple tract school was established in Missouri. Since the late 70’s YRE has picked up in popularity and is a continuing trend. According to the National Association for Year-Round Education, more than 2 million students attend close to 3,000 year-round schools in 41 states and 610 school districts, which is a dramatic increase compared to the early 1990’s. There have been a variety of YRE schedules and currently there is the choice of single or multi-track, options within both of those, and an extended school year.
Single-track YRE
Single-track YRE is simply the reorganization of vacation time; summer break is broken up and distributed to make a more continuous period of instruction. All students and teachers follow the same schedule, and the rescheduled vacation is integrated throughout the school year into periods called intersessions. Intersessions are “usually utilized as instructional time for remediation and enrichment with both single and multi-track calendars. Intersessions typically involve school staff and community resources to provide a safety net and an academic boost to avoid failure or enhance achievement.”(Speck, n.d) Instead of students waiting for summer school to catch up, intesessions stop them from getting that far behind.
There are many advantages to the single-track calendar. By
One of the most talked about issues of schooling today, would be year round schooling. The program started as a new way to learn. The old way and still the way most schools calendar is set up was designed the way it is due to harvest times, when the United States was a farming country. There have been many studies done, and some schools have already implemented this program. The studies and the schools that have gone ahead and implemented the program have seen both good things and bad things in their findings. There will be both pros and cons for every issue, and some may see pros and cons differently. Year round schooling is the idea of attending school for an entire year, not all 365 days, but continuously throughout the year. Year round schooling operates on a different schedule to incorporate the same amount of classroom time as a typical school schedule has. The only difference is that the breaks are shorter, but there are more of them in year round schooling. This is the basis of most of the arguments for and against year round schooling.
A student at Ste. Genevieve High School even expressed how she needs the summer break to unwind and not have to care about studying for a class when school would return to session. Another reason students may oppose this change is due to the fact High School students may hold summer jobs to earn some spending money. In certain instances, the year-round calendar may prevent students from holding these jobs or holding them for extended periods of time. One more reason students may disapprove of year-round education is because of extracurricular activities, and how they will be changed or shifted. New teachers can be affected in many ways. Unlike teachers who work in traditional school districts, they do not have the long summer to prepare and acquaint themselves for the forthcoming school year. Along with preparing lessons and assignments, teachers would not be able to take their own vacations and prepare for school
Silva, Elena. "Revising the Current School Calendar Has Many Implications." Year-Round Schools. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "On the Clock: Rethinking the Way Schools Use Time." Education Sector Reports. 2007. 1-9. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 May 2014.
The change of the system to include summer breaks was due to issues not quite under their
The United States has a long and proud history of providing public education to its citizen’s children. The fundamental idea behind the creation of this educational system was that it be available to all, regardless of geographical location or family status. In the era that this initiative was generated many of America’s families lived and worked on farms, and children were a vital part of this lifestyle. The founders of the United States’ public schools had to create a plan that included all children, even those who were expected to perform agricultural work in the harvest season. Thus, the nine-month school calendar was brought into use, allowing farming children a three month break from school in the summer to aid their families in the crop yield. In time, youth participation in farming became outdated and obsolete, and this arrangement slipped from necessity to simply being a tradition held on to through the years. In our modern era, a year-round school calendar would benefit the teachers, students, and finances of America’s public schools.
The BC Ministry of Education recently allowed for flexibility in how school districts choose to organize their school calendars. BC School Districts currently follow a traditional school year calendar with students attending school approximately 190 days, most with a two week break in winter and spring and two months off during the summer months. “This model was very practical when the school calendar was designed to accommodate children with the needs of an agricultural economy” (qtd in Webb 5), and can be “described by some as outdated and irrelevant in today’s society” (Winter 401). A balanced school year calendar, also referred to as a modified school year and year round school, would maintain the same number of instructional days, but would evenly distribute breaks throughout the year. The literature and research available on the balanced school year is mostly American, with a few Canadian sources. This research indicates that those in support of this type of calendar see many benefits, but the most strongly supported with evidence is the reduction of summer learning loss experienced by students, especially for English as a second language (ESL) and low income students. For those who oppose the balanced school year, some believe summer learning loss does not exist and some strongly argue that changing the school calendar is only warranted with proof of increased academic achievement for students.
Both single-track calendars and multi-track calendars make use of intersessions. As previously stated, these are the actual 3 week breaks occurring throughout the year that were rescheduled from the traditional summer vacation. Year-round education offers students the chance for instructional time during these vacation periods for the purposes of enrichment, pre-teaching, and remediation. Because intersessions occur more frequently remediation can occur in sequence, thus offering a student help in a timely manner.
Back in the olden days, schools were originally put on a schedule in which students would spend the majority of the year in school, and 2-3 months off for summer break. The purpose of this was so that children could be home for the summer to help their parents run family farms. Today, due to progressive industrialization of farming, modernized farming equipment, and decrease in family farms, the need for children to be home during the summer to help run family farms is minute if not obsolete; because of this many schools across the United States have transitioned to year-round schooling (“Summer”). Contrary to belief, year round schooling does not usually mean more school days. Currently most year-round schools adhere to the 180 day school year. Instead of the traditional lengthy summer vacation, year-round schools distribute the 180 days throughout the entire year while allowing for shorter breaks. Common scheduling for year-round schools includes cycles of 2-3 months in school followed by 2-3 week breaks (“Research Spotlight...
Year round school or the modified school year is a rearrangement of the traditional school year to provide the students with continuous learning throughout the school year. Students receive the same amount of instructional time as a traditional school. In year round schools, the instructional time is balanced without of school time more evenly. (Winter, 2005) The National Association for Year Round Schooling defines it as “a schedule which contains no break lasting longer than eight weeks-schools are able to keep their students in constant learning mode, and are able to use the intersessions between periods of schooling to address the problems of students who are falling behind.” (St. Gerard, 2007, pg. 57) There are three common tracks of year round schooling. They are the single track, multitrack, and extended year. The single track is scheduled throughput the year into intersessions which allow time for enrichment or red-mediation. The multitrack is used to help schools reduce overcrowding. The school divides the teachers and students into groups of an equal size. Each group has its own schedule. One group is on intercession while the other is in school. The extended year increases the amount of time spent in schools from 180 days to as many as 240 days a year. (McGlynn, 2002)
Throughout time education has been considered a process that every so often must be improved. The education quality in the U.S. has declined over the years and people have been looking for a way to make improvements. A more recent proposal has been to go from a traditional nine-month schedule to an all year program. Supporters of year round school claim it gives the student a better education. However, the prospect of year round school is not beneficial to the taxpayers pocket, to the education a student receives, or to the people involved with the district.
Shortly, we became more industrialized and had more advanced technology which made the summer vacation that was so crucial to the survival of the family now purposeless. With these long summer breaks, it can affect a child’s learning in so many ways. According to the benefits of year-round education article,”As of the 2006-2007 school year, nearly 2,800 U.S. schools were classified as year round.” One essential problem with long summer breaks is lack of retention of learned material and can lead to the student not being able to make progress with their learning in the next school year. In year-round schools, kids don’t waste time on review as opposed to traditional schools who take about three weeks reviewing the information they learned in the
Family vacations, pool memberships, and corn de-tasseling; these have been the experiences of traditional Midwestern summers. For centuries young American children have attended school during the winter months, during farming off seasons when their families could afford to be without them. Families have grown accustomed to a traditional school calendar that provides time for bonding throughout the year. Students have grown accustomed to an eight week break during the summer months where they are allowed to refresh their minds before returning for a new school year. Unfortunately, these traditional experiences and practices are now in jeopardy. In today’s race to improve student achievement, traditional school calendars have become a point of contention. Today more and more school districts and parents alike have begun to debate the pros and cons of an alternative school calendar.
In the United States, most schools still use a ten-month calendar that was developed when our country’s students needed school off to help with harvesting (Palmer). Trimble Local Schools Superintendent Kim Jones says, “year-round schooling is the notion of getting away from the old agrarian calendar...which was formed up around the planting season. Students were out of school from April until harvest to work in the fields,” (qtd. in Hapka). Under the agrarian system, most United States students are in school for nine to ten months, and get a two- to three- month summer vacation. However, the United States is no longer an agricultural-based society, and students have no need to take a three-month-long, unnecessary, not to mention disruptive break during the summer months; instead, the United States should switch the school systems to a year-round calendar.
The American educational system is based on the traditional, nine-month school calendar, which has been in place for over a century. Originally, the United States was an agrarian society. The majority of Americans lived on farms. People made most of the items that they needed, and with little trade necessary, there was no need for schooling (McLain, 1973). However, as people branched out into neighboring areas, they needed to learn new skills, such as basic arithmetic to price items, measure land, and more (McLain, 1973). As a result, it became the responsibility of those who were less needed on the farm or in the factory to acquire knowledge for the family (McLain, 1973).
What do you think about going to school year round with little breaks here and there, but not your traditional three month summer break? Year round schooling has been a decision argued with the government, teachers, principals and parents. Many kids and adults like to relax on their three month break. Many students are used to having two week winter break, one week spring break, and three months of summer break. Overall, one three month break would benefit than having three-week breaks broken up throughout the school year.