Year Round School Research Paper

Year-round school is when students “attend classes for anywhere from six to nine weeks in a row, broken up by two- to four-week vacations.” “The idea of year-round school began to gain momentum in the 1970s” but only recently became a major topic of discussion by “educators, parents and social scientists.” “The National Association for Year-Round Education states that the number of students in year-round schools has tripled in the last ten years. By 2001, there were about 3,000 year-round schools” (Peters). However, this alteration does not come without inconveniences such as less opportunities for summer activities and intense summer heat during school hours. Although some people believe that a year-round school schedule will prevent a summer …show more content…
With year-round school, that means learning during the hottest months of the year, that students would typically have off, which proves a problem because “many older school buildings do not have air conditioning, making a year-round schedule impractical” (Kelly). In Gaille, it is stated that “classroom environmental issues” may arise due to the age of many schools in the United States which “discovered that the average public school building is more than 40 years old.” and that “many of these buildings are not equipped with air conditioning” (Gaille). Also, the transition can be especially difficult for students in low-income schools with the fact that “many schools don't have air conditioning” who will be forced to learn in a sweltering hot classroom for hours on end. Peter. In other words, the summer heat can cause a major problem in year-round schooling because of the lack of air conditioning in schools due to most school buildings' old age and income. All in all, the hot summer heat paired with the lack of air conditioning in school buildings is not only proven to be impractical, but can also play a role in a lack of student …show more content…
In the Editorial Calendar, it is mentioned that summer slides often occur among students during traditional school. With year-round school, not only will there be no less risk of summer slide, but there will also be “better retention of course material” (The Editorial Calendar). In other words, students tend to forget some of the information they learned during the school year during the summer. A fix to this problem could be a year-round school schedule which not only would leave less time for students to forget their previous lessons, but more time to learn new lessons better. While this may be true, there hasn’t been enough evidence to prove that students will forget more with a traditional schedule than with a year-round schedule. In fact, critics say “that there is simply not enough evidence that learning outcomes improve when students attend school without an extended summer break” (Lamar University). As shown above, although some people believe that using a year-round schedule would show better results, it is clear that the inconveniences caused by year-round schooling would outweigh the benefits. Many students of all ages look forward to their annual summer vacations, which will lead them to be let down by not experiencing their traditional

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