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This is a letter by a high-school principal to members of his/her community
I know that many students, parents, teachers, and members of the community have concerns about switching from a nine-months-on, three-months-off school year to a year-round plan. I’m writing to you to address those concerns.
Let me assure you that a year-round schooling doesn’t mean students will be in school 12 months a year. Students will attend ten-week terms year-round. They will have three-week vacations between terms. In total, students will be in school only a few more days than they are now. Families can still take vacations.
Of course, we’re not thinking about year-round schooling just to give families new vacation options. Our reasons are to improve student retention and to ease overcrowding in a cost-effective way. Currently, most of the first term of the school is spent reviewing material students have forgotten over summer break.
Year-round schooling eliminates the need for review and improves student retention. Studies show that scores on standardized tests have risen in schools that switch to a year-round schedule. And a multi-track year-round school calendar would allow us to reduce class size and eliminate overcrowding without spending millions of dollars to build additions to our school. In Florida, for example, a school system saved $12 million in construction costs when the district switched to multi-track year-round schooling. By grouping students into different tracks, or schedules, some of which start earlier in the day, we can make maximum use of limited classroom space. In short, year-round schooling will give our students more education for less.
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