Year-Round Schools Make Tracks in North County : Education: San Marcos Unified, Escondido Union Elementary prepare for schedule that was implemented 2 years ago in Vista district, where most parents have taken a liking to the new calendar.

Suzie Owens has worked hard the last year and a half to figure out where her children are supposed to be and when.

It hasn’t been easy. Two of her children attend a year-round school, and many of their activities change meeting dates with the year-round schedule.

Her 6-year-old daughter, Kelly, attends Brownie troop meetings, their schedules depending on what “track” she is at Lake Elementary School in Vista.

But Kelly’s baseball calendar does not go by tracks. Neither do sister Monica’s ballet lessons.

However, they both attend after-school religious education courses, which are scheduled by the girls’ tracks.

Their oldest sister, Elizabeth, and brother, Chris, both go to high school, and they aren’t tracked at all.

While San Marcos Unified and Escondido Union Elementary are gearing up to switch to year-round school calendars, parents at Vista Unified have already become adept at coping with the hazards and benefits of year-round education after nearly two years.

And, although the schedules have required a jumbling of their lives--from baby-sitters to vacations--parents in Vista generally seem to approve of year-round education, as do many teachers, administrators and the children themselves.

Year-round education expands the capacity of a school by dividing students and teachers into tracks, with tracks rotating vacation periods that are more frequent, but shorter, than the traditional summer vacation. Thus, one track is always on vacation while the others remain in session.

Vista Unified adopted the system in 1990 to cope with a growing student population and a lack of funds to build new schools.

The state requires that a school district have a significant number of its schools on a year-round calendar to receive the highest priority for state construction funds. Because of the stiff competition for that money, several school districts in San Diego County are, albeit reluctantly, switching to the year-round calendar.

Escondido Union Elementary last month chose to implement year-round education in its elementary schools beginning this July.

Earlier this month, San Marcos Unified voted to go year-round, starting July, 1993.

Valley Center Union Elementary last week lost an appeal to a state board that would have allowed the district to get construction money without the year-round education requirement. Now, the district might have no choice if it wants $6 million in state funds to build a planned new middle school.

If the experiences of Vista families are any indication, adjustment to year-round school may be rough at first, but it’s doable and, once made, can become more comfortable than traditional school calendars that have nine months of schooling and three months off in the summer.

“It’s very hard for me to remember sometimes who is going where when,” said Owens, a 38-year-old mother of four who runs a home-based craft business and volunteers on several school district committees.

But Owens and her children said that, despite the complexities of scheduling, they prefer year-round school to traditional calendars, where three months of summer often become tediously boring.

“During the summer, you go to the beach, then you go to the beach, then you go to the beach, and then you go to the park, and then you go to the beach again,” Owens said of the traditional-calendar schools.

But under year-round education, “just about the time the kids get sick of being at school, they get a vacation, and, just about the time they get sick of being at home, they go back to school,” she said.

Elizabeth Owens, a freshman at Rancho Buena Vista High School, has been on both year-round and traditional calendars over the last two years.

“I liked year-round because it gave you time,” she said. “It didn’t seem like everything, like classes and vacations, were all clumped together.”

But, like other students on year-round, Elizabeth bemoaned the fact that many of her friends were placed on different tracks and so took vacations at different times.

Still, this year, after starting high school, which is on a traditional calendar, Elizabeth began yearning for the frequent breaks that she had become used to while attending Washington Middle School the year before.

“After three weeks, I was dying for a vacation. You build up a certain amount of stress at school, and that’s when I really wanted a vacation,” she said.

Maureen Huitt, president of the PTA council that includes Vista, has little but praise for the year-round schedule.

“I love year-round education, and frankly, I don’t know of any parents that don’t like it,” said Huitt, who has two children on year-round schools in the district.

The year-round calendar does make communication more difficult among parents, students and teachers on different tracks, but the hassles are worth it, Huitt said.

Parents also find that year-round schools have educational advantages.

Senora David Aguilar, a parent of four children at Santa Fe Elementary School, said her children retain more of their English-language skills under year-round education with its short, monthlong breaks than they would normally over long, three-month summer vacations in traditional schools.

“I like year-round a lot. My children learn more English under year-round, and they can speak it a lot now with their friends,” Aguilar said.

Sylvia Aguirre, coordinator for Latino parents’ groups in Vista, said Aguilar’s experience is a common one. Many Latino families have found that it helps children learn English by eliminating long, three-month vacations and interspersing shorter vacations throughout the year, she said.

“Some of the parents say their children don’t lose as much English as before, when they would be off for the summer,” Aguirre said.

Alison Olson, a teacher at Lake Elementary School and a mother of four, rarely gets to take a vacation with her children because of the year-round schedule.

Olson teaches on the Blue Track, and three of her children are on the Orange Track. So, they never have vacations at the same time.

“When they offered me the (teaching) job, I chose not to switch my kids’ tracks because I wasn’t secure in my track, and I didn’t want to jerk them around with mine,” Olson said.

Only on major holidays and rare breaks do Olson and her children have any more than a weekend off together.

“I didn’t plan it that way. But there definitely is a silver lining to it, because I’ve been a parent for so long with so many kids, and that is that I get a month off by myself,” she said.

But, at the same time, she never gets to sleep in. Either she is going to school or her children are.

Olson speaks enviously of the day that she and her children will be on the same track and be able to exploit one of the hidden advantages of year-round education: taking vacations at off-peak seasons.

“There was this great Disneyland package that one of the Blue Track teachers was talking about,” Olson said, imagining her family having the amusement park virtually to themselves on some weekday in April.

Until then, though, Olson faces the problem of finding someone to take care of the children.

First she tried having 13-year-old daughter Roxie watch the three younger kids, ages 10, 8 and 5. After three tries, (“That was a horrible experience,” according to Roxie) it got too stressful for her, and they switched to Grandmother, who lives nearby.

“It was too much work for her,” Olson said.

Finally, they had a live-in to baby-sit the children earlier this year, which worked out well until the baby-sitter got married, Olson said.

Now, Olson is back putting advertisements in the newspapers looking for another live-in before the kids are back on vacation in April.

Local community groups also had to adapt to year-round education. The Boys and Girls Club of Vista has expanded its budget by 30% at a time when most community service organizations are struggling simply to maintain programs.

Although the actual increase in children served is marginal, up to 2,344 students from 2,200 before year-round was put in place, they are served over a longer period, said Howard Amend, executive director of the organization.

The switch to year-round meant a doubling of programming, expanded office hours and more volunteers at the organization, which serves children ages 7 to 17.

“I thought a lot about resignation at the time,” Amend said. “But it’s amazing how well it has worked out. I thought it would be a horrible task, but so many people have pulled together, and people have been very cooperative.”

Teachers and administrators also generally like the new calendar.

“My guess is that, if and when we have a luxury of space, people are going to want to continue on a year-round calendar,” said Vista Supt. Rene Townsend, who feels that the ideal would be to have a single-track, year-round calendar with more school days.

Smaller class sizes and less-crowded schools lead to a tighter school community, Townsend said.

“The more the kids connect with their schools, the better. And things happen more easily when there is a smaller group,” Townsend said.

Tom Conry, president of the Vista Teachers Assn., said that, under the year-round structure, there is a lot less reteaching of lessons forgotten over the summer.

“We are spending a lot less time in review from one grade level to the next. There are always little problems that come up that are unique to year-round education, but they are not insurmountable by any means,” Conry said.

One of those problems is that only two-thirds of the students and teachers are on campus at any one time, meaning that information must always be distributed twice in order to reach everyone, Conry said.

Also, teachers and students might not get off traditional holidays, such as Easter week, that they are used to having off, Conry said.

Ron Riedberger, assistant superintendent of administrative services, points out that major maintenance projects that would normally have been done during the long summer, such as recarpeting and painting of rooms, now have to be squeezed in during very short breaks.

Finally, the state has yet to come through with long-promised funds for several of the district’s older schools that lack air conditioning, Riedberger said.

“There’s no question about it. Some of our schools get very warm during the months of July and August,” said Riedberger, who doubts that relief will come before the end of this summer.