year round school

[mclisa]

Does anyone have kids that go to school year round. Our district is proposing making this big change.

[erinsmom1996]

We moved into a district with year round school for elementry schools when DD was in 2nd grade. We didn't know how we would like it but it worked out really well. They get three weeks off in the fall and in the spring and two weeks off around the holidays. Their summers are about 6 weeks long. It was nice because she was not home long enough in the summer to get bored and those breaks during the school year were nice if we wanted to travel instead of waiting until summer.

[ollyoxenfree]

We found some benefits and some negatives to an almost year-round system. For a couple of years, our 2 dc attended a school system that had four 10-week terms, with a 2-week break between 3 of the terms, and a longer 6-week summer break.

The benefits - there was a nice seasonal rhythm, the regular 2-week breaks seemed to refresh everyone and were great opportunities for travel at different times of the year. With longer breaks throughout the year, we seemed to maximize our seasonal activities. In a typical Sept. to June school year, with one looong summer break, I find that by the end of summer, you've exhausted most of the things you really want to do. Then autumn, winter and spring fly by without much chance to travel or try different things - unless you travel at Christmas, which doesn't work for a lot of families. Another benefit is academic - there are claims that there is less need to review material from one grade to the next, because students don't have a long break to "forget" what they've learned.

The biggest disadvantage, from my view, was the "lost" time. The first week back after term break, everyone is distracted, the classes don't seem to be organized yet, everyone is happy and relaxed, but no one is really ready to work. The last week before end of term is worse - often teachers have already left on term break (either personal travel or accompanying school trips), lots of kids have left too, no one is focusing in class. It's like having the first week of September and the last week of June four times a year. Another disadvantage was the interference with the chance for a good summer job for high school students saving for university.

Depending on your climate, if I was in a school district that was changing to this system, I'd want some information about school infrastructure and facilities. If you are in an established North American school system, in an older school built for cold winters and long summer vacations, chances are it doesn't have air conditioning or the kind of construction that makes sitting in a classroom in the sweltering summer an attractive proposition.

Overall, I think year-round schooling is a good system, as long as there are frequent, lengthy breaks between terms.