Web Connection
By: Robbie McAnelly
On any typical morning in July, one would find most NAHS students asleep in their beds around noon. The thought of being in school at such a time seems preposterous.
The issue of having a year-round school system or the traditional seasonal school system has been debated for years. While there are some pleasant-sounding benefits to the year-round system, there are quite a few negatives along with it. The constant argument of, “Why try to fix something that isn’t broken?” seems to be the common belief among most NAHS students.
At first glance, a student may automatically look past the year-round schooling option simply because of its name. Year-round schools, in fact, go to class the same number of days as a seasonal school; however, some students are hesitant to go for anything that makes school seem like a never-ending experience.
The benefits of year-round school may change one’s mind. For instance, it can lead to kids losing less information learned over the summer months and decrease the laziness of students who decide not to study or work. Most students would probably agree that the last weeks of summer seem to drag by because they have already done everything they intended to do. Year-round school would take those boring weeks of summer and place them throughout the school year, causing less break time to be wasted doing nothing. Having time off school spread throughout the year would also give families that choose to vacation at times of the year other than summer the opportunity to travel.
While the benefits of year-round school seem nice, there has to be a negative side to these arguments, otherwise we would already be in school year-round. Some say that the apparent academic benefits of retaining more information may not be entirely true; students will always forget some information regardless of how long of a break they take away from the school building.
An obvious argument students have against year-round school systems is the lack of the grand “summer.” Summer is viewed by many students as a childhood must-have, and year-round school would strip away the traditional aspect of the two-month summer. Not only would the traditional two-month summer be taken away, it would also cause summer programs and camps to suffer. Additionally, kids who work in the summer to cover typical teenage expenses such as a car or gas to put in said car would lose the opportunity to hold summer employment.
Another obvious concern would be the lack of money the NA-FC school system would have to fund year-round school. On top of the debt already accumulated, additional costs such as air conditioning in the summer when students would be on summer break and heating costs in the winter when students would be on winter break would cause the debt to rise even higher.
The thought of going to school year-round would be enough to make any typical high school student cringe. While there are some possible benefits, the negative arguments seemingly outweigh them.
Extra study on this topic below.
No academic benefit for year-round school
According to a sociologist at Ohio State University, math and reading scores for children in year-round schools improved almost the same amount as those in traditional schools.
Paul von Hippel, author of the study and statistician in sociology at Ohio State, claims that although children in year-round schools seem to learn more during the summer when children in traditional schools are on summer vacation, children in traditional schools learn more throughout the year.
The study seemingly proves that year-round school has no real academic benefit due to there being no real change in the amount of time spent in school. Both systems require students to go to school 180 days. The year-round school system does nothing but spread the time off of school more evenly throughout the year.
Some educators believe that year-round schools help children remember what they learn in school by having shorter break times, where children in traditional schools would lose this information over a long summer break. According to von Hippel’s study, year-round schools do not solve this memory loss; it only spreads the memory loss in small increments throughout the year.