Year-Round Schools

Fact Set
• Year-round school refers to a modified school calendar that offers short breaks throughout the year, rather than the traditional summer vacation. Some year-round programs are “multitrack,” which means that different groups of students are at school at different times, and some year-round programs have everyone go to school on the same schedule.

 • Over 1 million California students attend year-round school, and California is planning to greatly extend yearround schedules in the next five years. Urban schools in other major cities across the country have adopted year-round schedules as well.

Arguments in favor of year-round schooling
• Year round schooling helps schools that are overcrowded because not all the students are in school at the same time. Without year-round school, class sizes would increase and students would get less individualized attention.
• Students forget a lot of information over long summer breaks and time is wasted at the start of the year reviewing this material. With shorter breaks, students will have less opportunity to forget things they have learned. Students may also be able to concentrate more easily without having such a long break from school in the middle of the school year. Increased concentration on school work will help students learn more.
• Given current budget deficits, many school districts might decide to cut days off school if they do not use yearround school. Year-round school is better than cutting days out of the school calendar.
• Different tracks can be used to group students with particular interests or needs together. Students who are struggling with language abilities, for example, can be placed on the same schedule so that teachers can target classes to their needs instead of having to teach a highly mixed class.


Source:  http://www.middleschooldebate.com/documents/yearroundschool.pdf