Year-Round Schooling

Year-Round Schooling Student: Professor: Course title: Date: Year-Round Schooling Summer vacation, a crucial staple of the education in the United States, is something which all students usually anticipate and hope for as soon as the initial day of classes commences. Year-round schooling basically refers to an instructional program wherein educators and students do not have the usual 2 months of summer vacation (Will, 2014). In the past few years, some experimentation has been carried out with year-round schooling aimed at increasing the achievement of students. In the year 2007, 4% of all students in America, or in excess of two million learners, attended school year-round, which in fact represents a rise of 0.7% of learners, or a rise from 360,000 learners who attended school year-round in the year 1986 (Gismondi & Nasser, 2013). Some of those who oppose year-round schooling assert that learners do not really benefit from an extended instructional period, claiming that learners become burnt out and have a less likelihood of achieving in their courses. On the other hand, some of those who support year-round schooling assert that lower-income learners benefit given that they are less capable of affording supplemental learning opportunities during the period of summer (Wildman et al., 2011). This research paper provides a cohesive argument in favour of year-round schooling. Thesis statement: year-round schooling is a great option as it helps avoid school overcrowding, improves students’ academic performance, and has a positive impact on both students and teachers. Relieving summertime boredom is just among the reasons why school districts often prefer year-round instruction. Teachers who have attempted different school schedules reported a number of benefits, for instance focused and happy educators and learners; lower rates of student dropout and less learners retained in grade; learners who go back to school prepared to study; higher student attainment; less overcrowded buildings and classrooms; and improved parent involvement (O'Sullivan, 2013). This report argues that the year-round school calendar is a better alternative to the traditional 9-month school calendar as it is helpful in preventing overcrowding in schools and classrooms; improving the academic performance of learners; and has a positive impact not only on learners, but also on their educators. Year-round schooling helps prevent school overcrowding Year-round schooling schedule is usually utilized as a remedy for school crowding given that it enables schools to keep their facilities in constant utilization all through the year. Year-round school calendars in most cases operate either on multi-track school schedule or a single-track one. In a single-track schedule, every student is on a holiday break simultaneously. The single-track schedule presents a number of benefits including focused teachers and students, and improved attendance (Huebner, 2010). In a multi-track schedule on the other hand, a proportion of learners are on holiday at a particular time. Learners could choose to make the most of enrichment or remedial programs or spend time with their families during their intercessions (Barber, 2013). Multi-tracking is advantageous as it enables schools to enrol a large number of learners than buildings would usually hold. On the whole, multi-tracking maximizes the use of school facilities, reduces class size, and increases school-building capacity. Multi-track is largely utilized in alleviating overcrowding (McGlynn, 2012). The multi-track system is designed particularly for school districts that have inadequate classroom space. It is utilized in avoiding double sessions, temporary structures, and constructing new schools. The multi-track schedule increases building capacity from twenty-five to fifty percent, over and above alleviating the need of building expensive new buildings (Huebner, 2010). Besides saving on costs of capital construction, multi-tracking also saves on the ongoing costs which are part of operating new schools. Schools with year-round schooling schedule use the multi-track system in which the school is basically divided into 4 or 5 dissimilar tracks. Holidays and breaks are spread out between the tracks in such a manner so that whilst 3 out of 4 tracks are presently in school, the other one is on break/holiday. When one track comes back, another one goes on holiday. When holidays/breaks are staggered, schools that are overcrowded are able to ease some of the stress associated with having a large number of students (O'Sullivan, 2013). All in all, the multi-track system helps to expand a school facility’s seating capacity thereby relieving school overcrowding. If for instance a school has a seating capacity of 1000 and utilizes a 4-track system, the school can possibly enrol a total of 1,333 learners, which increases the school’s seating capacity by 33%. In reality though, 4-track systems usually expand the seating capacity by roughly 25% (Wildman et al., 2011). Reducing overcrowding in schools is important for various reasons. For instance, learners in classrooms that are overcrowded tend to experience more violence, achieve less, and actually pay less attention. In addition, schools that are overcrowded have a higher chance of having unsatisfactory or insufficient lighting and electrical systems, foundations, floors, ventilation and air conditioning systems, heating, and safety features (Will, 2014). Converting schools from the traditional calendar to year-round, multi-track calendars is an effective way of relieving overcrowding rather than constructing new schools. In year-round, multi-task schedules, educators and learners rotate being on vacation and in school at dissimilar times all through the year. In their study, Gismondi and Nasser (2013) found that year-round calendar schedules help in partly offsetting the adverse effects of severe overcrowding on reading achievements for schools that are crowded severely. All in all, year-round school schedules are able to serve more learners and this could be a solution to crowding problems in schools. With year-round school schedules, students who are smarter would be able to graduate quicker by being enrolled in their holiday periods to allow for lessons. The size of classes is decreased, which in turn creates better learning environments (O'Sullivan, 2013). Year-round schooling improves academic performance of students The year-round schooling schedule allows for the remediation to take place all through the year, instead of occurring only for the duration of the months of summer. For instance, on a 45-15 schedule – 45 days of learning followed by 15 days of holiday –, educators are able to provide mini-summer school lessons, in which students who struggle academically could come to school to obtain assistance during their time off (Barber, 2013). For learners who struggle in a certain area, or who have special needs, quick interventions like these ones could really help in keeping every student on pace. Researchers have found that most learners who attend a year-round school schedule tend to have better academic performance, particularly the learners who hail from families that are socioeconomically underprivileged (Wildman et al., 2011). Even so, it is notable that these gains are not exclusively due to attending school year-round. Huebner (2010) stated that most of learners’ academic improvement is without doubt execution of programs in the on and off periods all through the year which allows learners to undertake remediation in areas where they have academic weakness. Moreover, a lot of schools provide enrichment programs in on and off periods for students who are above or at grade level. In essence, these experiences also contribute to improved performance of students on academic measures (Clark, 2010). Y...