BURBANK : Attendance Up at Year-Round School

Attendance at Monterey High School--for students and teachers--has improved so much since a year-round schedule began a year ago that officials want to continue the experiment for another year.

However, district officials say they are still not sure whether the new schedule--in which nine weeks of school are followed by three weeks off--has hurt or helped student performance. Preliminary information shows that the amount of work that students at the continuation high school finish had fallen short of expectations in November, Monterey Principal Pamela Feix said.

Monterey High School is for students who fall in a variety of at-risk categories, including pregnant teen-agers and teen-age parents, and others who have trouble coping with larger school populations.

“The biggest complaint we had from this year’s students was they were out too long at Christmas, which was for four weeks,” Feix said, explaining that the students appreciate having the school open because it helps them with a wide range of the problems they have in their lives.

“Other students seem to appreciate having something to do in the summer,” she said.

The new schedule has helped with faculty attendance because the schedule provides routine breaks that can relieve stress for teachers, who work one-on-one with the students instead of in a traditional classroom, Feix said.