One positive effect of the yearlong calendar is that kids no longer get bored over the long summer break. Kids with shorter breaks have less time to get in trouble during summer free time .Kids with time on their hands may find negative ways to spend this time. I have personally witnessed many children, who though sweet when young, started down the wrong path due to the fact they were home alone during the long summer with no supervision. By the time they were teens, most were experimenting with drugs. It is easy to see how a yearlong calendar could help these kids. Many believe a yearlong calendar decreases vandalism; however, I have found no hard evidence to support this. I know as a mother of three boys, summers that were not planned in advance were full of fighting. I learned quickly to pack my children’s summer with activities. We had a pool membership at the racquet club and kids were part of their swim team. Play dates, frequent trips to local zoos, children museums, and camps were all part of our summers. I would also have my children tutored during the summer months on various subjects. Summers like ours came with a hefty price tag and the advantage of a stay home mom.
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Most people who oppose a yearlong calendar believe the longer calendar results in more school. The reality is the numbers of the days are exactly the same. They are just distributed differently. Schools with a yearlong calendar take more frequent breaks throughout the school year, eliminating the long summer. Many believe the yearlong calendar leads to students retaining more of what they learn and subsequently results in the teachers spending less time reviewing. Also, many schools on year-round calendars offer remedial help during break times for students who are struggling. The Riverton school district offers remedial help in math, writing, and reading for no charge (Mulligan). They also offer enrichment classes for nominal fees. Many believe this increases test scores and helps disadvantaged children. Data on this issue is very inconclusive.
Why aren’t more school districts changing? Money is one issue many school districts are already struggling with. Adopting a new school calenderer means more operating cost. For starters; some schools will need to install air-conditioning. Schools that offer remedial learning will have to pay teachers more, provide transportation, and pay bigger electricity bills. Schools will incur start up fees preparing for the year long school calendar. Schools will first have to win the support of the teachers and their unions. Teachers and their union are not a hurdle to be taken lightly due to the fact that many teachers actively seek additional summer employment. Parents would have to be convinced that it is worth the hassle to find childcare for short periods of time. The school district would also have to win the approval of the community.
There are several businesses that would suffer tremendously if our local Springfield School District were to adopt a yearlong calendar. Knight’s Action Park has spent millions of dollars creating a fun place for kids to come in the summer. Season passes for a family of four are around $500. Many families could not justify this price if the family could only use them for a few weeks each summer. Weekends, of course, are still an option but many families often have sports activities such as baseball and soccer on the weekends. Most coaches (good ones any way) do not allow their players to swim on game day because they could suffer from exhaustion. My husband, a coach for 15 years would bench any player who swam on game day. Doug Knight, owner of Knight’s Action Park, said “A yearlong calendar in Springfield would kill my business. It would be devastating. It would also be devastating to Illinois tourist industry, a 45 billion dollar industry.” Doug Knight is a strong activist against the yearlong calendar and quotes his information directly from a study performed by the Illinois Bureau of Tourism (Illinois Bureau of Tourism). He often goes before the congress of Illinois, fighting to keep our schools on the traditional calendar. Doug believes our school needs serious change. One of his suggestions is make the school day longer. If you simply add 15 minutes each day you have added 2 full weeks of school with changing anything. Doug also stated he employs 200 local teens in the summer. I know three of those teens and they depend on that money for college.
Other local business would suffer as well. The Springfield Racquet Club and Fitness Center started a summer camp twenty years ago. This camp is set up to meet the needs of working families during the extended summer period. They invested money for an outdoor shelter, indoor gym, hired staff, and implemented the summer camp. A new yearlong school calendar would significantly reduce their income and leave all their work on building and supporting the camp effectively wasted. The return on investment that this business made in good faith would be rendered useless in one single blow. Again, as at Knights Action Park, college students would lose their summer income.
There are many other businesses in Springfield that have made investments in the traditional summer break that would be affected as well. Baseball tournaments would have to be rescheduled, summer camps and summer programs closed, and all at the cost of jobs. The impact to the city of Springfield would be huge. On a national scale it is not hard to see why amusement parks such as Knight’s Action Park, Busch Gardens, and King’s Dominion lobby so hard against a yearlong school calendar (Shelton). Traditional family vacation destinations also predictably line up against the yearlong school calendar. It is not hard to imagine the devastation to the Florida economy that would take place if a yearlong school calendar were implemented nationwide. The vacationers would still come but they would be funneled into windows of travel afforded by the yearlong calendar, rather than a steady stream of people for the entire summer. These windows would fall into all the seasons of the year instead of just the summer, hurting business even more. Summer businesses in Illinois, for instance, will not be open when the fall, winter, and spring breaks occur. In spite of all the reasons not to have a yearlong calendar it is still constantly brought up as a solution to America’s education woes.
One of the strongest reasons people believe in the yearlong calendar is the increase of academic success. Heather Dhom is a Springfield, Illinois parent. Heather was very excited about the opportunity that yearlong schooling offered her children, and promptly enrolled them in the Southern View Elementary School. Unfortunately, her children showed no improvement after switching to the yearlong calendar. Heather loved the calendar, but after switching, no academic improvement was realized. Heather learned what districts in this country and other countries have learned after implementing a yearlong school calendar.
Prince William County in Virginia stated after 9 years of a yearlong school calendar, “Overall, no evidence was found that there is any significant difference in the education being received on the 45/ 15 plan as compared to the traditional calendar“ (Barker). A recent study performed by Dr. von Hippel, a sociologist from Ohio State University, states, “Students in year-round schools don’t learn more than their peers in traditional nine-month schools.” The North Carolina Department of Education performed a recent study that found that “yearlong schools fail the test of academic superiority.” This study, located at the URL http://www.summermatters.com/impstudies.htm, found that the “North Carolina Department of Education study of reading and math test scores of more than 345,000 students, grades three through eight, found achievement in the year-round schools was no greater than in traditional calendar schools and a differential in scores of disadvantages children that was not of practical significance.” (Bussard) Charlie Naylor, with the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation systematically reviewed all literature for and against yearlong schooling and found, “From my reading of the literature I would conclude that the case for improved educational achievement caused by the implementation of year- round calendars is not proven and should be treated with some skepticism.” (Naylor)
With such conflicting information available on the benefits of a yearlong school calendar, it is hard to justify the economic destruction that will take place as a direct result of switching. At a minimum, such an aggressive change to everyday American life would need to be phased in over a long period of time. Spreading the transition over a long period will give businesses the flexibility they need to find new markets for their existing programs and uses for their capital assets. In the mean time, this summer my family and I will be cooling off at Knight’s Action Park and going on vacation – whenever we want to.
Works Cited
"Balanced vs Traditional Calendar." Welcome to NAYRE. NAYRE. Web. 1 May 2011. Barker, Karlyn. "Year-Round School Experiment Ending In Prince William." The WashingtonPost 15 Dec.
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Bussard, Billee. "Important Studies." Recent Studies Reveal Education Deficits of YRS.
Summermatters.com. Web. 2 May 2011.
Grabmeier, Jeff. "Year-Round Schools Don't Boost Learning, Study Finds." OSU Research News Index
Page. Ohio State University. Web. 3 May 2011.
Illinois. Bureau of Tourism. The Economic Impact of Travel on Illinois Counties. By Research Department of
the U.S. Travel Association. Print.
Koskie, Brandi. "Obama Proposes Longer School Days | Edu in Review Blog." Scholarships, Schools, Tips
& Advice for College Students - EduInReview.com. Eduinreview.com, 12 Mar. 2009. Web. 13 Apr.
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Shelton, Destiny. "An Earlier Start for the Virginia School Year? - Fredericksburg, VA Patch."
Fredericksburg, VA Patch - News, Sports, Events, Businesses & Deals. Web. 2 May 2011.
Naylor, Charlie. "Do Year-round Schools Improve Students Learning?" British Columbia Teachers'
Federation. BCTF Research and Technology Division, May 1995. Web. 3 May 2011.
