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The Calendar Year for Public Schools: Year Round?

Posted by: Haley York

Monday, December 31, 2007 12:12 PM

Since it is the holidays, I thought this would be an appropriate topic: Should public schools be year round?

My answer? Absolutely not. Think about it. The average student spends 7 hours a day at school, more if they take a bus or have extracurricular activities. The average student is home for about 2 hours before his or her parent/guardian arrives home. Depending on the parent/child relationship, the two will spend less than 3 hours a day together. If parents need to take responsibility for their kids, don't you think they should know their kids too?

Yes, I am aware that most parents work during the summertime too, but having their kids at home can influence a parent to take their lunch break at home or leave a little earlier from work. Also, the student has no homework to do, as well as not having a 'school night' bedtime, giving the students more free evening time. Somehow, a parent is able to spend more time with their child over summer vacation. Speaking of which, summertime is the number one vacation time. Year round school would take a big chunk out of the number of family vacations.

What about summer jobs? Year round schooling would limit the number of employees the local pools could hire to college students only. High school students that need extra cash would be forced to work during the school year, affecting their GPA's.

Since students spend most of their time at school, parents have little opportunity to interact with their kids, impressing upon them life lessons that aren't taught in schools. Summertime is a great opportunity for this. Summer is also a great time for students to calm down from the school rush, take a break, and get ready for the year to come. Spiritually speaking, it's a time of serenity, peacefulness, and mental grounding.

Isn't high school supposed to get students ready for college? Please, somebody, name me one college that is on the same schedule as a year round school. Even if you can, the large majority of colleges operate on the regular schedule with a summer vacation. College is a big enough step as it is. Don't throw off the freshman any more than they already are.

Some say that summer vacation sets students back, that they 'forget' material from the year before, and they get into 'summer mode' way too early. This may be true for some students, but not all. Moving to a year round schedule requires many short breaks in the school year, many of them a week long. What stops students from getting into a 'break mode?'

(By the way, some students get into 'weekend mode' and forget things from last week. Would you like to get rid of weekends too?)