Year Round Schools

Proponents of year-round school say it's amazing how quickly it's catching on -- 1.5 million students attended about 2,000 year-round public schools last year, compared to 1,650 schools a year earlier and 425 schools seven years ago.Those people are wrong. What's amazing about year-round schools is how slowly the idea is catching on, considering that it's been around since the 19th century. There are more than 40 million students attending more than 83,000 public schools in the United States -- and most of them attend from Labor Day until mid-June.

With less than three weeks before classes are scheduled to begin, Baltimore school officials are ending a year-round schooling program at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, the only one of its kind in the city, over the objections of teachers and parents. School system officials said parents of Coleman pupils will receive letters this week saying their children should report to school with the rest of the system on Aug. 29, not Aug. 15 as planned. They say the change is needed because the school's pupils have repeatedly had low scores on standardized tests, and its nontraditional calendar - in place for a decade - is hampering its ability to train teachers, among other problems.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer proposed yesterday to give five school systems money to study, implement or test year-round school schedules beginning early next year.Under Mr. Schaefer's plan, which he outlined at a statewide conference on year-round education, the five districts would get as much as $100,000 each in state money to explore alternate schedules.Proponents say the year-round concept would lower school construction costs and increase student achievement, but many parents and others are dubious.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Delve into the history behind year-round school, and the fallacy of using a horse and buggy-day calendar in the new millennium becomes clear. The hundreds of sadder but wiser communities that tried and abandoned calendar experiments over the last century should be a lesson for any community. They learned the hard way that a year-round calendar delivers neither the academic nor economic benefits promised by its promoters. The century-long failure of year-round schools is strangely ignored by both its promoters and some researchers.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Delve into the history behind year-round school, and the fallacy of using a horse and buggy-day calendar in the new millennium becomes clear. The hundreds of sadder but wiser communities that tried and abandoned calendar experiments over the last century should be a lesson for any community. They learned the hard way that a year-round calendar delivers neither the academic nor economic benefits promised by its promoters. The century-long failure of year-round schools is strangely ignored by both its promoters and some researchers.

Howard County school officials kicked off their campaign for year-round schools last weekend. A forum organized by the Board of Education last Saturday 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.

Despite resounding opposition to year-round schooling in a recent survey, the Howard County school board is pressing ahead with a proposal for state funding to explore the idea."

Tomorrow, Gov. William Donald Schaefer is expected to announce which counties will receive state funds to develop or implement a year-round school pilot program.Howard, naturally, is one of the contenders and stands a good chance of being chosen. Seven jurisdictions have applied for the grant; six will be chosen.Few of the other counties have generated as much attention on this subject as Howard, which the governor himself mentioned as a likely candidate for year-round schools when he first floated the idea at a convention of county leaders last summer.

IS THE TYPICAL SCHOOL calendar dated? You bet it is. It's a century-old relic based on a farming economy that no longer exists. Children regress academically during the summer. The nine-months-on, three-months-off school year is inconvenient for the half of American families in which both parents work. It encourages indolence and vagrancy. Is it likely to give way to something that makes academic sense? You bet it isn't. Although 2 million children are in year-round schools (four times the enrollment of charter schools)

THE IDEA OF year-round schooling doesn't resonate in the suburbs.It's been shot down over the years in several Maryland subdivisions. The ammunition is economic and nostalgic.Year-round schools, it's said, would disrupt family vacations and the multimillion-dollar summer camp industry. Restaurants and other businesses would be deprived of summer help.And kids wouldn't be allowed to be kids -- to play pickup baseball through those endless summer days, splash in the neighborhood pool and go to weeknight Oriole games.

ONE OF THE arguments being used by local proponents of year-round schools is that they could help troubled institutions such as Severn's Van Bokkelen Elementary, where social problems breed poor pupil performance. Without a doubt, a year-round calendar or even longer school days which would extend the calendar beyond the state-mandated 180 days ought to be considered for Van Bokkelen.Schools in similarly impoverished, transient communities, such as Robert W. Coleman Elementary in West Baltimore, have found that year-round schooling promotes stability and cuts down on "summer learning loss," especially with remedial students, who account for a disproportionately large percentage of the population at such schools.

WHILE HOWARD County took little time dispatching with the year-round school issue, across the border in Anne Arundel the issue is still kicking. The Howard school board drove a stake through the idea of year-round schools so swiftly and surely that Sen. Christopher J. McCabe recently withdrew his bill calling for a voter referendum on the topic, which some people viewed as unnecessary piling on.But in Anne Arundel, a task force is recommending that individual...

Year-round schools won't come to Anne Arundel County any time soon.School board members appeared intrigued yesterday by the idea but said they need more information than they got from a task force that recommended consideration of a pilot program."

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.

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.

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.