In B.C., the Liberal government have offered a plan of year-round schooling. This means that there will be no summer break; instead it will become shorter breaks throughout the year, yet students will still get other holidays off. The most popular plan for the year-round calendar is the 45-15 plan, which is attending school for 45 days, then getting a break of 15 days. Other examples are the 60-20 and 90-30 plan. Originally, about 100 years ago, the school calendar was established because the students needed to help their parents harvest on the farm in the summer season, but in the modern days, barely any family owns a farm anymore, so summer break is unnecessary. In fact, students will learn better if they don’t have such a long break.
An Argument for the year-round schooling is that students enjoy their long summer break too well, and tend to forget school work during summer, so they often waste the first few weeks of school playing catch-up and reviewing what they learned last year or further back. Now with the plan of year-round schooling, the long two-month break has shortened into a few weeks. This way it is more difficult for students to forget what they learned from before the break. Also, it is easier to schedule personal vacations. Not everyone wants to go on vacation at the same time, so the year-round schooling plan can satisfy everybody. If you have noticed, the plane tickets are extremely expensive during summer break, because that is the main break throughout the year, so even though the plane tickets are much more expensive during summer, most people would still purchase summer tickets. If B.C. operates the year-round schooling plan, B.C. students will have the option of purchasing cheap tickets throughout the year while other provinces and countries’ students are still busy at school. Another reason for the year-round schooling plan is that more students can be able to attend a single school by multi-tracking. With the rapid population growth in B.C., schools are overwhelming with students and are forced to enlarge the building or adding more portables, but either choice costs a large amount of money for the government. With multi-tracking, the students can take breaks at different times and also attend school at different times, which will decrease the amount of students attending school at once.
There are also people who disagree with the year-round schooling education. Some arguments they have against this plan are that summer programs will have to be canceled because there will be no “summer”. Summer camps and summer school will not exist due to the fact that no students will attend. Summer camps are a great opportunity for children to learn other strategies such as collaboration skills that are necessary in school. It is also enjoyable for some because of the interesting activities in camps. There will also be no summer school for those to catch up and go forward. Students who didn’t do so well in the school year will have no opportunity to re-do the course during summer; they will just have to stay behind and re-do when others go on. Some who wants to go forward in their education also can’t grant their wish. Some poor and old schools don’t have air conditioning, so the students will suffer during summer, having to stay in the heat for hours. This may cause medical issues because they might get heatstroke. Most teachers also don’t agree with the year-round schooling plan, because with students’ multi-tracking, teachers will have almost no break at all throughout the year. It is also necessary for teachers to renew themselves before a new school year. Also with multi-tracking, students from the same family may get different schedules, which mean it is more difficult for their family to plan vacations.
Personally, I don’t support this plan of year-round schooling. Summer has always been my favourite season of the year, mainly because we get two months off. During the two months, we don’t have to worry about education and the stress from school. Summer break is a break for our brain to relax and enjoy the sunshine. Sam Keen once said, “Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”
Sources:
http://712educators.about.com/cs/reformtime/a/yearrounded.htm
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1170354--b-c-opens-the-door-to-year-round-school
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art22031.asp
Angela you examined the controversy quite well providing a lot of reasons for and against. However there are a few errors in your research. A year round system still allows for all students to have a summer break, just not the really long summber break they are used to. Additionally you claim that most teachers oppose the plan - this may be true but I have not seen any research to support this yet. Can you point me in the direction of this research or were you overstating some? I know there are teachers (like parents and students) who are in favour and many others who are wary but reserving judgement until a specific plan is suggested; as you indicated there are a few different options for creating a balanced calendar and as this is new to our system, many are wary until more questions can be answered. One last question for you regarding summer programs like summer school - do you think these remedial programs would be needed if students learned better (retained more content and skills) on a balanced calendar? I wonder. Well done - gave people lots of info and now I posed queries back to you to extend your thinking.
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