Year Round Education

The long summer vacation could be history for some county schoolchildren.A task force says it's worth trying to spread the 180 days of school throughout the calendar year, eliminating a nearly three-month summer break and having more mini-vacations.While the committee's recommendation was unanimous, the group stopped short of saying all 117 public schools go year-round. Instead, the committee suggested schools volunteer.The task force will brief the school board tomorrow at the board's meeting, which begins at 10:30 a.m. at school system headquarters on Riva Road in Annapolis.

Anne Arundel County could become the first school system in Maryland to approve year-round schools if the Board of Education agrees with a panel appointed by Superintendent Carol S. Parham.The Anne Arundel County Task Force on Year-Round Education is to recommend tomorrow allowing individual schools to operate on a year-round schedule.Jeanette Wessel, chairwoman of the 45-member committee, said members agreed on the recommendation after studying other year-round schools in other states."Our research showed it's been very successful," Ms. Wessel said.

A forum on school funding will be conducted from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Wilde Lake High School, at River Hill on Route 108 in Clarksville. The forum will focus on balancing school needs and fiscal responsibility. County Executive Charles I. Ecker, school board chairwoman Susan Cook and Superintendent Michael E. Hickey will respond to questions from 9:15 a.m. to 10:20 a.m.Two sessions then will run concurrently, each to be held twice, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:25 a.m. and from 11:35 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The topics will be:* "Education funding and the county budget," featuring Dr. Sydney Cousin, the system's associate superintendent for finance and operations, and Ray Wacks, county budget administrator.

Howard County school officials kicked off their campaign for year-round schools this past weekend. A Saturday forum organized by the Board of Education was decidedly upbeat, at least from the standpoint of officials, who offered a mostly positive slant on the concept. But questions from some of the several hundred audience members indicated considerable doubt about implementing such a change in Howard.School officials are a long way from convincing the community that this idea can fly. The dose of heavy skepticism shown toward this radical approach can only be healthy.

EVEN THOUGH the Howard County School Board last week rejected an ill-conceived and disturbing plan for year-round schools, the issue seems to have more lives than an alley cat.As board members were about to vote, Associate Superintendent Maurice Kalin recommended that they continue to consider year-around schools as a "fallback position" should a financial crisis strike the county. The board, by a 4-to-1 vote, rejected that idea, but the death knell sounded tentative. Another time and another board could very well resurrect this misguided notion.

The Anne Arundel County school board may consider comprehensive redistricting of all public schools next year, as well as look into year-round schooling.As the board began to look at proposed changes in school boundaries affecting five school feeder systems yesterday, Acting Superintendent Carol S. Parham suggested that the board take a broader and longer view of the school system's facilities."We must have a plan to deal with our increasing enrollment," Dr. Parham said.The board will vote next month on whether to proceed with countywide redistricting, restrict the study to the Arundel, Broadneck, Chesapeake, Meade and Old Mill feeder systems, or do both.

Former Gov. William Donald Schaefer was a leader who if he liked an idea, ran with the idea. The approach served him well at times. But in the case of year-round schooling, he was pushing a concept well before the facts were known.Now, as more information flows in, it's clear year-round schooling isn't the cure-all he imagined. His administration awarded grants to a half-dozen jurisdictions to study alternative school calendars, but residents haven't warmed to the idea and findings about the benefits have been mixed.

Anne Arundel County could become the first school system in Maryland to approve year-round schools if the Board of Education agrees with a panel appointed by Superintendent Carol S. Parham.The Anne Arundel County Task Force on Year-Round Education is to recommend tomorrow allowing individual schools to operate on a year-round schedule.Jeanette Wessel, chairwoman of the 45-member committee, said members agreed on the recommendation after studying year-round schools in other states."Our research showed it's been very successful," Ms. Wessel said.

Children are learning all the time, Baltimore schools Superintendent Walter G. Amprey is fond of saying. They learn even in the summer, a 10-week vacation for the vast majority of Maryland's 750,000 schoolchildren.Do kids fall behind during that time? Is there "summer learning loss," as the educators call it? Dumber for the summer?Depends on what kind of learning you're talking about -- and what kind of students. Also depends on whose research you're looking at. "It's very clear that all children do better on testing if they go to school in the summer, but low-income children gain the most," says Charles Ballinger, who heads the National Association for Year-Round Education.