Year round school is a learning program that allows students to attend school for 45 days and go for 15 days break. This school system setup may operate on a single-track schedule where the entire students are scheduled for the same school calendar and get the same holidays or through the use of the multi-rack schedule, where different groups of students attend school at different times and have different holidays.
Most of the public schools use the year-round calendar.
Pros:
1. Reduce crowding: Year-round program can reduce overcrowding in the institution by proving three different schedules for the students to follow. Use of multi-track schedules allows classrooms to be in constant use while keeping the student’s population low. This increases students learning opportunities.
2. Time utilization: It allows teachers to utilize classroom time efficiently since they don’t have to re-teach previous skills after a long vacation.
3. Short breaks: Many students use this break as a way to catch up on work they didn’t understand or missed throughout the year. The students can receive remedial attention.
4. Keeps learning process ongoing: Traditional summer holidays make students forget what they learned in the previous grade. The year-round learning changes these dynamics and students will be always engaged with the learning process throughout the year.
5. No need for summer school: There is no extra cost incurred for paying for summer programs which keep students engaged with core educational elements. Having an open year-round school ensures education is ongoing and no added cost spent on summer programs benefitting the poor.
6. More efficient school format: Many countries implement year-round education system due to its numerous learning benefits to the students as well as have shorter breaks through the year.
7. More option for vacation scheduling: The year-round schedules offers families to have more options for scheduling vacations during the school breaks.
8. Reduce stress: Frequent short breaks reduce stress on students. They will be more eager to learn after the break.
9. More time to plan lessons: Teachers will have enough time to plan for the lessons during the breaks.
10. Advance more quickly: Students will be able to advance to the next level instead of waiting for the next school year.
Cons:
1. Reduces maintenance opportunities: The school facilities are being used all year round making it difficult to carry maintenance activities for buildings and other school facilities. This may increase the overall cost of heavy maintenance.
2. No year-round activities: The year-round schools do not provide some competitive programs like sports for students.
3. Disrupt learning: Too many breaks may disrupt learning as the teachers only have to focus on a topic for a few weeks so as to complete the syllabus to time.
4. It affects student involvement with their work: Using the 9 week or 45 days format, when the students are warming up to the learning process, they are released for a short break. This may make it difficult for students who struggle to focus to be involved with their work.
5. Different schedules for families: If multi-track schedule system is used with year-round schools, some families may find out their children are in different school schedules and this can put the families in difficult financial situation.
6. Reduce opportunities for extra-curricular activities: Sometimes students need to work to support themselves. Having all year round schedule can limit students searching for a job like in traditional education setup where students look for jobs in the long summer break.
7. Reduces the impact of traditional summer programs: Some programs like youth camps, boy and girl scouts, and other non-profit organizations rely on traditional schooling schedule have to restructure themselves to fit in the year-round schedule to fund their activities.
8. Environmental issues: Many classrooms don’t have air conditioning and may not be suitable for learning during the hot period.
9. Prevents teachers from having secondary employment: Teachers normally take part-time jobs during the long summer season in order to supplement their income. Having all-year-round program will prevent them from having an extra part-time job.
10. High cost: The cost of changing from traditional school to a year-round school is very high.
