Improved Learning, Savings Stressed : Band of Educators Ringing Bell for Year-Round Schools

A small band of educators has been quietly but persistently pushing an idea that they say will improve learning, save money, cut down on burnout by teachers and boredom among students and permit interested teachers to earn far higher salaries.

The idea is to keep schools running year around, giving students and staff several short breaks rather than one three-month summer vacation.

The U.S. school calendar, they say, is a relic of a farming society that dictated that youths be free to help their parents during harvest. However, recent studies have found that children, particularly ones from disadvantaged homes, forget over the summer much of what they learned during the school year.

Children “learn best with a continuous learning program,” said San Diego County school Supt. Gerald Rossander. Under the traditional school calendar, “we move two steps forward and one back every year.”

California, because of its mild climate and overcrowding in some districts, has been the leader in establishing year-round schools. The Los Angeles school district has 94 schools on a year-round schedule, most of which are seriously overcrowded.

However, there are 50 year-round schools in the San Diego area, most of which have chosen the all-year schedule for the convenience it offers.

Nationwide, there are 325,000 students in 15 states enrolled in year-round schools this year, according to the National Council on Year-Round Education, which wrapped up its meeting in Los Angeles this weekend. Typically, students in a year-round school may attend class for a nine-week session and then get three weeks off, repeating that schedule.

While tradition dies slowly, the year-round school advocates say they are slowly winning other educators over to their side.

“The important education reforms take 30 to 50 years, and we’re fighting against more than 200 years of tradition,” said Charles Ballinger, a curriculum coordinator from San Diego and the council’s executive secretary. “The fads come and go, but this is a change of major proportions.”

Recently, California and several other states have lengthened their school year by a few days in response to publicity about the Japanese and European school systems, whose students often are in class 220 days a year.

However, with a few exceptions, U.S. schools have not gone to a year-round schedule until forced to by overcrowding.

By dividing a student body into four groups and putting each on a rotating schedule so that one group is on vacation at all times, administrators can accommodate one-third more children in the same building.

That is the case in the Oxnard district, 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, where 11 of the 15 elementary schools operate all year because of overcrowding, Supt. Norman Brekke said.

“If we build a school for 600 students, we can handle 800 on this calendar,” Brekke said. “We have absorbed the equivalent of two entire elementary schools this way, which translates into a savings of $9 million in capital costs alone.”

However, Brekke is convinced that the year-round schedule has also improved test scores for his district’s Latino students, has raised morale among teachers and children and has contributed to a sharp drop in vandalism.

An independent study of the district’s testing program has found a steady rise in scores, as more schools have gone on the year-round schedule, Brekke said, because “we don’t have the learning loss during the long summer break.”

The Murchison Street School in East Los Angeles is one of five in the Los Angeles district that has chosen to operate on a year-round calendar, even though it could resume the traditional September-to-June schedule.

“The staff wanted to stay on this schedule, and we polled the parents and they voted for it too,” Principal John Kershaw said.

Not only do the students benefit from more continuous instruction during the year, Kershaw said, but the Murchison school offers two-week “intersession programs” for children who want to attend during their vacations. Last week, for example, the school was in the midst of a three-week break, but students could attend half-day sessions where they were taken on museum trips.

“We try to get away from the traditional paper-and-pencil tasks, but we try to make their breaks an enriching experience,” said Kershaw, adding that extra instruction is paid for through special federal and state aid.

Esperanza Sandoval, a fifth-grade teacher at Murchison Street, said she would not like to return to a traditional school schedule. If the school had chosen to go off the year-round schedule as the crowding problem eased, “I would have tried to transfer to another year-round school somewhere else in the district,” she said.

Sandoval said both students and teachers are fresher with the all-year schedule. Moreover, she teaches during most of the intersession periods, significantly boosting her annual salary.

Some education experts say year-round schooling could be a means to giving teachers more competitive salaries.

The annual pay of teachers is well below that of most professions, in part because they work only 36 weeks a year, compared to the 48 or 50 weeks that is typical of most full-time jobs, writes Denis Doyle, an education expert with the American Enterprise Institute, and Chester Finn, a Vanderbilt University professor, in a recent article calling for U.S. schools to operate year-round.

Many teachers are forced to moonlight during the year and over the summer to supplement their anemic salaries, they note.

“If teachers were paid for a 48-week year at the same rates they are paid today, their salaries would instantly rise by a third,” Doyle and Finn say, arguing that schools should be open to interested students for the additional weeks. This would also help solve the problem of “latchkey children,” because many mothers work and cannot be at home when the schools are closed.

In Jefferson County, Colo., 36 schools operate year-round, and many give students a chance to take courses during the intersession periods.

High school students “take advantage of the schedule to do some exploration,” said William White, assistant superintendent for instruction.

“They might take a single course, whether in Latin or ceramics, during the intersession period,” he said.

Students can also explore Colorado’s mountains and ski resorts, he noted, since winter vacations are as popular as summer vacations there. Although the enrollment has fallen in the county, “we have not had a single community that has chosen to revert back to the traditional calendar,” White said.

In the Los Angeles district, the issue of year-round schedules has been virtually synonymous with overcrowding in the Latino and Asian neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles.

“There are probably some advantages to year-round (operation) if it’s done right,” said Los Angeles School Board member Jackie Goldberg, who represents Hollywood and the Wilshire corridor areas. However, many of the year-round schools lack air-conditioning, she noted, and most are poorly maintained, because they are never shut down long enough to permit major renovations. Moreover, many teachers complain that they are bounced from one classroom to another each time the school schedule changes.

Nevertheless, the district’s surveys have found that teachers and parents are generally pleased once they adjust to the year-round schedules. An evaluation of the test scores has also found that the students in the year-round schools do as well or slightly better than their counterparts operating on a traditional schedule.