Year Round School Pros and Cons

When President Barack Obama came up with the aforementioned statement hinting on the fact that he is in favor of the year round schooling system, it raised some eyebrows and reignited the age-old debate on this issue. In a bid to join this very debate - but with a firm stand, we decided to evaluate the pros and cons of year round schooling. Before we move on to get the details of year round pros and cons, let's try to understand how this concept actually works and get rid of some misconception about the same.

How Does a Year Round School Work?

Contrary to the popular misconception, year round schools do not operate on all 365 days of a year, but operate on 180 days as in case of the 10-month system. In year round schooling, however, these 180 days are spread over the period of a year - with several short breaks instead of the regular 2 month long break in the 10 month schooling system. This system can be implemented by resorting to various plans such as the 45-15 plan, 60-20 plan or the 90-30 plan. In case of 45-15 plan - which is also one of the most followed plan in the world, the school is operated for a period of 45 days followed by a 15 day break in a cyclic manner. The same procedure is followed in case of other plans, without excluding the normal holidays and breaks from the year round school calendar.

Year Round School Pros and Cons

Year Round School Pros
Shorter vacations result in higher retention rates - this is one of the most prominent argument put forth by those in support of year round schooling system when advocating the need of this system. They also argue that shorter breaks would give students more time to receive enrichment by doing away with summer learning loss - the loss in academic skills and knowledge over the course of the 2 months long summer vacation. Studies have revealed that students with low grades do well when they are subjected to proper instructional teaching on a regular basis, and year round schooling will serve the purpose and help such students.

Implementation of year round schooling will also help in doing away with the need of inculcating re-teaching skills after long vacations. Short breaks spread over the course of year will help families plan, which in turn will help children (as well as the working professionals in their family) regenerate before getting back to their routines. When putting forth their arguments on the need of implementing year round schooling in the United States of America, those in favor of the same also put forth the fact that this system has been implemented successfully in various parts of the world.

Year Round School Cons
Everything has a positive side as well as negative side, and the concept of year round schooling is no exception. When highlighting year round school cons, the critics of this system often state that the studies pertaining to this system are inconclusive and unreliable. They argue that students will forget some part of what they have learned irrespective of whether it is a 15 day break, 2 month break or a 6 month break. In such circumstances, the authorities will have to take at least four sessions to sharpen the re-teaching skills over the period of year as opposed to only one session in case of 10-month schooling system.

Children learn a lot at and other such recreational programs. Implementation of year round schooling system will reduce the time of such developmental programs, owing to which these children will lose out on some important lessons of life. Those teenagers who take part-time jobs during the summer breaks and earn something on their own will not be able to do so in a 15 day break. At the same time, the schools will also bear the brunt of this system as their maintenance costs for the shoot up by a significant margin.

One has to take all these pros and cons of year round schooling into consideration when coming to a specific conclusion on which is better 10-month school. In the big debate of year round school pros and cons, statistics suggest that 60-90 percent of the teachers support this system as it makes sure that they as well as their students don't suffer from the burnout of continuous school. Parents, on the other hand, are left confused about the same. If all the schools opt for year round system it would be of great help, but if half of the schools opt for year round plans and others remain with 10-month system it would be a problem as parents who have their children going to two different schools would hav