Traditional Vs.Year Round School Schedule: Is There an Impact on Students?

For years, scientists and researchers have done research on the impact of a year round school schedule in replacement of a traditional schedule, the results always appearing contradictory. However, the students of Ross are finally voicing their opinion, and for once a student body may be the deciding factor of this decision.

Schools across the globe have had the same schedule for hundreds of years now, however, some schools have realized the toll a large break from the classroom had on student’s learning, and they are working to fix this. Many have adopted a new year round school schedule, as to avoid the “summer slip” students receive from a long break.

As shown by a school wide survey, 81.8% of students enrolled at Ross prefer a traditional school schedule, this including the two to three month vacation from school. The other 18.2% of students prefer a year round schedule, with intermittent breaks throughout the school year. However, 48.5% of students claim to forget information over the long summer break, a roaring percentage compared to those happy with the year round schedule. This data unfortunately implicates that though students admit to forgetting important knowledge, they prioritize their vacations over their learning experiences. 51.5% of students do claim to retain all information gleaned from the school year over the summer,  however this percentage does not come close to the 81.8% who prefer a long summer break.

Currently in the United States, over 3,000 schools have adopted the year round schedule. The results of Ross School, however, are extremely contradictory to the studies done in these schools. According to these studies, many schools and their student bodies nationwide are unaffected by the long summer break. These also show the negative results that come with the year round schedule. These include problems such as a school’s band and other extracurricular programs suffering from scheduling out-of-school practices and competitions. In addition, parents have the ability to be affected by these changes as well. If an entire district does not adopt a year-round calendar, parents could have students at different schools at different schedules, thus changing their ability to vacation as a family.

Although some studies show that a year round schedule may be beneficial, these results are inconclusive. All the trouble many schools have gone to may have been for nothing. However, this does not mean that scientists should stop collecting data, nor that schools should continue to alter their schedules. As learners in this great wide world, we must continue to experiment, for we have no idea what comes next.