Matthew Lynch: The Disadvantages of Year-Round Schools

Year-round schooling is a hot topic as US schools struggle to get ahead. Matthew Lynch debates the value of sacrificing summer vacation for academics.

Proponents of a year-round school year suggest that a shift in the time designated for teaching and learning will help students achieve more by minimizing summer learning loss, allowing for innovation and implementation of creative programs, and providing the time needed to assist children who need extra help. Many school districts around the country are in fact working toward increasing both the hours in each school day and the number of days schools are in session.

Along with significant advantages, there are also distinct disadvantages associated with year-round schools. The major disadvantage is the assumed detriment to family structure. American families have become accustomed to the traditional long summer vacation. Parents may find it difficult to schedule vacations and family reunions. This concern is not to be dismissed, as it is important to children’s development to spend quality time with their families. Childcare could also become a concern, particularly if multiple, shorter school vacations were scheduled throughout the year, at times when parents are working.

Matthew Lynch

Year-round schools can also prove to be disruptive to family life when children in the same household attend different schools. If one child in a home is a student at a traditional school while another attends a year-round school, the children may not have holidays together. Families could end up in a situation where one child is on a lengthy vacation while another is required to attend school.

During summer vacations, parents may struggle to schedule family vacations with varying work and school schedules, particularly if these schedules are not what they are accustomed to, or if different children in the same family have different schedules. Despite these potential problems with family scheduling, relevant research studies have actually found that, after implementing year-round schooling, parents found it not as hard to deal with the new schedule as they had anticipated before the implementation of the program.

Another possible drawback however is the impact on the family situations of teachers in year-round-schools who are parents. Teachers who have children attending traditional schools may experience difficulty when it comes to spending time with their children during the summer vacations. Because of these potentially negative effects on the family life of students and teachers, the year-round school system was discontinued by some schools, including the Seminole County, Florida school district.

Extracurricular activities are another dimension of schooling that can be negatively influenced by year-round schooling. Teachers managing extracurricular activities observed similar difficulties adapting these activities into a year-round schooling schedule, as they did fitting their family life into the schedule. Extracurricular activities can put stress on all students.

Another area of concern when adapting to year-round schooling schedules is administration. School administrators have sometimes found it difficult to deal with licensure and contractual issues of the teachers when working out schedules for year-round schools. It can also be difficult to plan optimal usage of school buildings. Of course, a serious issue is finding ways to best leverage this new, extra school time and to increase quality instruction time. In short, year-round schools require the administrative blocks of schools to keep working throughout the year, which increases the administrative burden.

Situations become even more difficult in multi-track schools, as the administration is required to manage different students in the same school at different times. The multi-track year-round schools require more use of buildings, educational equipment, and other facilities, which creates further insufficiencies and increase expenses. Time is often wasted, particularly in mundane activities such as moving equipment from one class to another.

Dr. Matthew Lynch is an Assistant Professor of Education at Widener University. Dr. Lynch is the author of three books; It’s Time for Change: School Reform for the Next Decade (Rowman & Littlefield December, 2012), A Guide to Effective School Leadership Theories (Routledge February 26, 2012), and The Call to Teach: An Introduction to Teaching (Pearson 2013). Please visit his website at www.drmattlynch.com for more information.

Comments

JIM H

March 21, 2012 at 12:38 pm

Matt….You need to climb down out of your Ivory Tower sometimes and talk to the people who inhabit the rest of this Nation.

Family vacations? Thing of the past for most. Quality family time? Another thing of the past for most.

Families will make the adjustments for their children’s educational opportunities. Longer days and longer school year is beneficial to them and their Communities and States.

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jeimiah rodgers

March 21, 2012 at 1:25 pm

true also year round schools dont get rid of summer learning loss it only sreads it thoughout the year

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Bonnie

March 21, 2012 at 1:49 pm

Until we as a nation make education a priority, so schools get the funding they need, there is no point in adding more days.

Also, many kids benefit from a break because they have learning challenges or personal learning styles which make it hard to appear successful in school. All it does is add more months of torture, when they may thrive in a summer program that is more nurturing or focuses on their strengths.

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Ann

March 21, 2012 at 2:05 pm

Let’s consider the students first, and then their teachers. There is NO air conditioning in my school and the school district does not purchase fans for the classrooms either. It would be torture for students and teachers trying to get through July and August! We have a hard enough time trying to make it through May and June! The high temperatures of these months tend to make all parties lethargic, especially in the afternoon!

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Sara

March 21, 2012 at 2:14 pm

I’m in Texas, where our legislature just cut public education by 5.4 billion for the biennium. There is no way states will pay for year-round schools. They’d have to pay teachers and staff more, and they won’t do it.

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Ellina Chernobilsky

March 21, 2012 at 2:38 pm

Dear All:
In our quest for better educated kids, have we lost the focus of our quest, namely, our kids? Have we asked psychologists who study children’s learning what is the optimal length of time to be in schools for the children? I have yet to see that we actually did and they SAID it was a good idea… When and how they learn best? Same answer there.
Have we considered what they learn the best from???? WE know it is not the textbooks, yet we pressure them to use these for longer periods of time… Shame on us!

Here is my personal example (and I understand this maybe considered anecdotal in the world of big numbers, but I believe this example is very telling). My child is nine, he is engaged with school (counting busing time, homework and so on) from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. That barely leaves him time to eat dinner, take a bath and read before bed time. The kid has not time to play with his toys (notice, I am not talking about watching TV or spending time on the computer), he misses his TOYS!!!

Studies show that only about 15 % of what we learn in life we learn in a formal classroom situation. If we increase the time spent in school, we may increase this percentage to, let’s for argument sake say 20%, this still will be ridiculously low compared to what we learn when we go see the world, play outside with friends, visit a museum or a cinema, gaze at the sky and so on and so forth. So why screw up the upcoming generation of kids by limiting their time actually LEARNING by making them spending more time in a place where learning is a high priority, but is actually minimal? Unless we change the way we educate the children and re-conceptualize our classrooms, our schools, there is no point of depriving children from learning where they CAN learn (i.e. outside the class) and making them sit in the class wasting their precious time.

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Mik

March 21, 2012 at 5:37 pm

First, I would like to know if there has been a determination if the time allocated to school is the reason why kids are not learning as well? Because before you introduce a solution, would it not be nice to know what the problem is? Why is current approach not producing as good results as it used to? Have we increased the target? Have we decreased the learning opportunity? I believe so… Our students now have to compete! Compete with cultures where education is given a priority! Where families (note, not schools, or governments or teachers… FAMILIES) are involved in kids education. Due to our economic situation, in most cases, both parents are required to work, so educating of our kids is left to schools. Parents washed their hands… They work. They are busy… I agree. It is difficult to make decent living. But education of the kids is foremost PARENTS responsibility… Check your kids homework… Use your family time to play word and math problems… Stimulate their interest in education… READ! Instead, we increase school time, where they get more of the same… or ignore more of the same… Many parents feel that it is school’s responsibility to educate the kids and schools respond by getting more and more involved in family lives… Kids are now expelled from schools for something they do outside, which has no relevance to school what so ever… Until parents realize that they are responsible and start getting involved in their kids education, increasing school year is just another way to spend more money for minimal results… Oh, and giving some parents even less time to get involved and others just another excuse…

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Mik

March 21, 2012 at 5:45 pm

another thought… Education is an industry like many others… In this regard, our education system follows the same path as our automotive and many other industries… They have a hard time competing and produce results that are no longer top grade. Probably for many the same reasons… It has become a profit vehicle for few who do not care about what happens after they leave… Maybe that is why we spend more and more money and still have classrooms with no air conditioning and no school books. Like in other industries, there should be more accountability and less bureaucracy

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keith baker

March 21, 2012 at 11:14 pm

The article confuses two types of YRS. Sometimes it seems to mean every kid goes to school for 12 months, other times, it seems to refer to a staggered attendance pattern for the student body where the school is used for 12 months but students only attend 9 months. The point of the latter is to reduce costs, which it does, lowering per pupil costs by about 8% (13% is theoretically possible).

The author claims, “The multi- track yearlong schools require more use of buildings, educational equipment, and other facilities, which creates further insufficiencies and increase expenses.” The author is an idiot. More than 30 years ago, my colleagues & I explained why YRS lowers per pupil costs and why idiots don’t get it:
Baker, K., Pelavin, S., and Burnett, R. (1978). Comments on `Effects of Extended School Year Operation,’ Education, 99(2), 221-224.

Baker, K. (1978). Comment. Education, 99(2), Outside back cover.

As this comment was written by an idiot, ignore it.

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