Marrone 1

Joshua Marrone

Mrs. Cramer

Comp. Pd. 1

14 April. 2022

Year-Round Schooling: Making the Switch

Summer vacation has been a controversial topic for some time. There are plenty of the

opinion of getting rid of this break in favor of a newer, more efficient year-round schooling

schedule. This idea has even taken a foothold in certain school districts, those of which are

pioneering the calendar. This change is undoubtedly the best move for schools, despite what

opposition may claim on the subject. Year-round schooling is superior to the current schedule

because it improves information retention and results in emotional benefits for both students and

staff.

Firstly, Year-round schooling is far superior to the current calendar because it improves

information retention in students. “Students' learning in a year-round school, however, can

progress with less of an interruption during the summer months. Students retain more

information during four short breaks than they would after the normal ten-week summer

vacation.” (Warrick-Harris). This clearly shows the benefit of the proposed schedule over the

current one. Summer vacation creates an extended period of time where students will inevitably

forget information and their intellectual skills will dull as they refrain from using them and

training their intellect. Further, the absence of a long summer break can increase retention of

information in students and prevent learning loss (Croteau). Not only would a switch to year-

round schooling remove the deficit of learning loss created by summer break, but it would also
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create an opportunity to further better student’s abilities by giving them more use and training.

Overall year-round schooling’s effect on information retention makes it far superior to the

current school schedule.

Critics claim that a switch to the new calendar is unnecessary and unimportant, as schools

are used to the current schedule. However, this idea is untrue and can even be harmful to the

progression of student’s academic capabilities. The current schedule is based on a traditional

agricultural calendar from a time when children were needed for crop harvests in the summer

months, which is no longer a major societal need (Warrick-Harris). This means that the current

calendar is completely outdated, and, to use the words of the argument against year-round

schooling, unnecessary. Not only does the current system serve no purpose, but it is also actively

crippling the schooling system through the existence of summer vacation, the negatives of which

have been previously discussed as holding students back and even worsening their academic

skills. In reality, a change to year-round schooling is a substantial benefit and is severely

important to bettering the schooling system.

Additionally, it is argued that a problem with the year-round schooling schedule is that it

would leave no time for leisure activities like vacations. However, this idea is simply

misinformed and overall incorrect. This so-called “problem” has been accounted for in the

commonly suggested schedule for full year instruction. In the new schedule, students would be

attending school for the same number of days as the current instruction schedule, with the

difference being how vacation time is handled. As explained in the article “It's time to change

our outdated school calendar”, there would be several, much shorter breaks distributed

throughout the year, rather than one, long summer vacation (Shields). This means that there is no
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need for a fear of missing out on breaks from school. It shows instead that while families will not

be able to go on full summer-length trips, they can still go on vacations multiple times a year.

Finally, Year-round schooling is better than the current calendar because it results in

emotional benefits for both students and staff. Firstly, in order to examine this aspect, one must

look at the negatives that it avoids. Summer vacation can cause social and emotional problems

due to being away from a constant social environment (McGuire). This first examines how the

current school calendar is problematic to the mental and emotional health of students. Having

such a long break is depriving them of a consistent time to socialize, build skills, and improve

mental health. Year-round schooling, on the other hand, negates this problem as well as further

improving the mental health of students and faculty. As the article “Taking charge of time: why

year-round schooling works for this Illinois district. (District profile: Rock Island-Millan (Ill.)

School District #41)” shows, year-round schooling positively impacts behavior, as students and

teachers are more energized and refreshed from often short breaks. There is significantly less bad

behavior from students and teachers are less stressed and burnt-out (Barton). This demonstrates

that the proposed new schedule for schools would be a large benefit to the mental and emotional

health of both students as well as staff. Overall, a year-round schooling schedule shows clear

promise in not only saving students from the possible loneliness of summer break, but also

helping them as well as staff feel more energized and healthier mentally and emotionally.

To conclude this essay, year-round schooling is superior to the current schedule because

of its improvements to information retention, and its results in emotional benefits for both

students and staff. While there is deliberation and disagreement on drawbacks such as a change

being unnecessary and unimportant and a loss of vacation time, these problems are misguided

ideas and are solved and avoided with further details of how the new schedule would work. With
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all of this known, it is indeed clear that the year-round schooling schedule is far better than the

current schedule.

Works Cited

Barton, Joe Ann. "Taking Charge of Time: Why Year-round Schooling Works for This Illinois

District. (District Profile: Rock Island-Millan (Ill.) School District #41)." District

Administration, vol. 39, no. 2, Feb. 2003, p. 20+. Gale Academic OneFile,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A98469272/AONE?u=pl1949&sid=bookmark-

AONE&xid=c90d2a6e. Accessed 23 Mar. 2022.

Croteau, Jeanne. "Is It Time to Rethink the School Calendar?" WeAreTeachers, 31 July 2020,

www.weareteachers.com/is-it-time-to-rethink-the-school-calendar/. Accessed 24 Mar.

2022.

McGuire, Brooke. "The Pros & Cons of Year-Round Schooling." American College of

Education, 17 July 2019, www.ace.edu/blog/post/2019/07/17/the-pros-cons-of-year-

round-school. Accessed 24 Mar. 2022.

Shields, Carolyn. "It's time to change our outdated school calendar." The Globe and Mail, 15

June 2011, www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/its-time-to-change-our-outdated-school-

calendar/article583315/. Accessed 24 Mar. 2022.

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Warrick-harris, Elaine. "Year-round school: the best thing since sliced bread." Childhood

Education, vol. 71, no. 5, summer 1995, p. 282+. Gale Academic OneFile,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17295743/AONE?u=pl1949&sid=bookmark-

AONE&xid=ac1da202. Accessed 22 Mar. 2022.