Year-Round Schooling is very Beneficial to Students

People think year-round schooling is very beneficial to students’ grades and test scores. Year-round schooling’s beginning to become more of a normal for many schools. This will affect many family schedules to become difficult to maintain. Students in high school agree that they wouldn’t enjoy year-round schooling and enjoy having summer. Most schools go 180 days a year with a large summer break between school years. In year-round schooling, instead of a summer break, every few weeks, short breaks or intersessions take place. This school schedule could become bad for families with young children. Kids and teens need a summer break for camps and the sports they play. Year-round schooling schedules could make a complicated life for a family who is not adapting well to the schedule. Let’s say a family tries to schedule vacation time, but they have kids who have different school schedules, it becomes quite difficult to find the perfect time. It has not been proven that children get better grades or get smarter by going to year-round school. School districts shouldn’t change to a year-round school schedule because it will affect the following topics adversely: scheduling conflicts, loss of summer jobs and camps, and the cost and teachers of the school. This wouldn’t be worth any academic benefits, that aren’t even proven true.

The year-round school schedule causes conflict in a family’s life and schedule. With the short breaks, it’s very difficult to plan a vacation or visit a family from far away. It also becomes difficult to find a babysitter for the younger children. With all the schedule issues caused, year-round school isn’t really worth it. There are no proven academic benefits. According to an Ohio State University study, Sonny Long says, “Students in year-round schools don’t learn more than their peers in traditional nine-month schools” (Long 2). What’s the point of sending these kids to year-round classes? Some families never fully adapt to the different schedule and if grades aren’t changing, there’s no point. In the book, Do Kids Need Year-round School, the author says people in favor of year-round school say that kids learn better and enjoy school more (Williams-Noren 9). That opinion isn’t true, in fact, Paul Von Hippel says in an Ohio State study, “We found that students in year-round schools… seem to learn less than other children during the rest of the year” (2). So if they are learning less during the year, after normal school students had their break, proves that the year-round students need a long break. With nothing beneficial in switching to a year-round schedule, parents become upset after going through a tremendous schedule change. It is sad that some families even sell their homes just to get away from the year-round schools.

Kids everywhere are looking forward to summer all year long. However, not all kids get to enjoy the three-month summer because of their year-round school schedule. When transitioning to a year-round school year, students lose their summer opportunities. They lose their chance for summer jobs and going to summer camps. When talking about summer jobs, Louis Wildman states, “Proponents of year-round schools point out that… summer has traditionally been a time for older students to find jobs” (Wildman 470). Many jobs that these students get are in agriculture. Summer is the prime time for work on the farm. By getting these jobs, teens will be able to use the money for college. Working on a farm will also help teach them discipline and hard work. People would say that the students can work or go to camps during the intersession time. During this time some kids have to go to school and go to classes, but not normal classes, enrichment classes. This is where they will get extra work and help with what they are learning. Students aren’t forced to do this, but many parents send them to this instead of daycare or camps. These poor kids have to spend their time working in school when they should be relaxing or having fun at camps.

After hearing about the kids and the crazy schedule, it leaves you to wonder about the teachers' opinion. When talking about the effect on year-round schooling, Louis Wildman states, “Several Administrators noted that when one school year runs into the next, they find themselves going through the motions…”(465). Do parents really want their kid's educators not doing their best? Many teachers feel that they aren’t getting the breaks they need. They begin to feel disconnected from their family. All that these teachers can think about is what will come next in the school year. An opposing opinion is that year-round is better for the teachers because the kids won’t forget what they had been taught. This is proven false with the evidence provided above. Most teachers are struggling more with this weird schedule. Another thing that comes into play is the cost the school has to pay by leaving the school open all year. The cost of cooling the school in the summer can add up, and by taking away the time to fix any problems, it could take longer for any maintenance to be done. In an article about the effect on cost, the author points out, “Maintenance is needed more consistently because of the year-round use of facilities; maintenance may become a problem because major repairs can no longer be done in the idle months of summer”(Opheim 117). With this being said, how can this cost make a year-round schedule the best move statistically?

In conclusion, although many are for the change to a year-round school schedule, the actual case is that the cost, loss of summer, crazy schedule, and the poor effect on teachers is not worth it. There really aren’t many positives to outweigh the negatives of year-round schooling. School districts shouldn’t change to a year-round school schedule because it will affect the following topics adversely: scheduling conflicts, loss of summer jobs and camps, and the cost and teachers of the school. This wouldn’t be worth any academic benefits, that aren’t even proven true. The solution is that all schools that have changed or are about to change to a year-round schedule need to stay at the normal nine-month school year. This would benefit the teachers and the student's availability to activities tremendously. In the future, hopefully, all schools change and are on the same nine-month schedule so everyone can be happy.

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