|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School calendar
fundamentals |
Watch this space for information about and from grassroots groups around the country that are committed to saving summers for schoolchildren. Currently posted:
If you would like information posted about your grassroots group, please e-mail your name, address and phone number to: bussardre@aol.com. Page updated August 15, 2001 The
Whetstone Report The
following report is an excellent model for grassroots
groups to use as a guide in framing their own arguments in support of the
traditional school calendar and in opposition to school calendar reform
fads. It contains some of the latest research available and covers many
bases in the argument against school calendar change. Maintaining the Conventional School Calendar at
WHS ---- A Research Effort by a Citizens Group Coordinating Editors: Brian
Brown and Joan Frederick Contributors, Authors, Reviewers, and Researchers Brian Brown
For summer to be
intellectually stimulating, it need not be, and indeed must not be,
regimented. It is a child's
right to be a child, and to enjoy the pleasures of a childhood summer.
That can't happen if every hour of your child's day is scheduled.
While no one wants his or her child slumped in front of the TV for hours
on end, neither do you want to make it a summer of stress. For the authors, that quote comes at no more an appropriate time than
during the current debate on implementing year-round school at Whetstone
High School. Most of us began
this journey with that exact sentiment and the disruption we see by
year-round school. We then
set out to discover for ourselves if what the WHS administrators said had
basis in fact. What we found out was that it had little basis in fact and in our view it
was another education gimmick. Herein
this document are a number of Research Results that support our contention
that there is no valid reason to move WHS, or any other Columbus Public
School for that matter, away from the conventional calendar. While some within the group have differing approaches, we all
are headed in the common direction to keeping WHS on the conventional
calendar. In
summary our major research results, supported by well-known experts, show
that
The report also covers local and national year round school efforts and discusses how many schools have tried but come back to the conventional calendar. In conclusion:
1. Introduction The initiators of this proposal submit they have investigated the concept and cite numerous advantages over the current conventional calendar. These proponents have embarked down the road toward implementation by taking votes of the school staff and student body. Additionally they have held, and scheduled, public presentations with certain parent and community interest groups seeking support for their proposal. Many parents and community members remained unconvinced, citing many unanswered questions, and finding that a large body of information and evidence exist which runs counter to the proponents alleged advantages of an alternative calendar. The authors of this report view this year-round
school (YRS) proposal as a radical alteration of the current conventional
calendar.
The same authors and others became alarmed at the speed at which
this "exploration" was heading toward implementation, despite a
lack of community understanding of the issue and a true consensus.
As a result,
several members of the community formed a loosely structured group to
investigate both the concept and the WHS Exploratory Committee process.
The intent was to provide balanced information to the community at large,
to invite active involvement in the public discussion of this issue and to
stop the implementation at WHS if the investigation yielded no positive
data. This report is a result of that search.
While it does not cover all issues, it attempts to cover major
issues and research results about YRS and its impact on Whetstone and
other schools in general. In July 2001, Dr. Gene Harris, the new superintendent of Columbus Public Schools, halted further public presentations by the proponents, until a feasibility study, at her direction could be conducted. 1.1. History of Year-round SchoolsYear-round schooling has a long history in the United States, dating back to the 1800s, when it was used sporadically in northern industrial cities in an attempt to address the English language instruction needs of the children of immigrants. By the turn of the century, it was being embraced as an answer for many of the same problems that plague schools today: overcrowding, funding shortages and improving the education process. But the year-round school movement also has a long history of failure. Research on the year-round calendar by The National Education Association in a report released in 1958 found that every school system that had attempted a 12-month calendar up to that point eventually abandoned it. The reasons communities dumped it back then are the same reasons they dump year-round school today: Year-round schooling is disruptive to family life, provides little or no academic benefit and saves schools little or no money--and can even cost much more. The revival of the year-round school movement in the late 1960s is a result of several dynamics at work in the post-World War II era. The baby boom sparked a demand for more school construction; meanwhile, the space race with Russia fueled yet another debate about the quality of American education. Around the same time, state, county and local governments were wrestling with ways to pay for the new school construction demands of rapidly growing suburban communities. The national media reports about the use of a
year-round calendar to relieve overcrowding in the suburbs of Valley View
School District 96, near Chicago, sparked a wave of interest in the
year-round school concept in the early 1970s.
The Valley View School District, which includes Romeoville and
Bolingbrook, grew from 89 students to nearly 5,000 in 15 years and was the
first in the country to The media attention given Valley View resulted in
consulting jobs in other school districts for Kenneth L. Hermansen, the
school superintendent and his assistant school superintendent, James Gove.
They would be instrumental in the formation of the National Council on
Year-Round Education, forerunner organization of the National Association FOR
Year-Round Education, the advocacy group that markets the year-round
school concept to school districts today. There were other pilot programs under way in other
areas of the county at that same time, prompted in some cases by demands
of businesses for more skilled workers to run industrial equipment. This
equipment made it increasingly more difficult to rely on unskilled
laborers to fill in for workers who took vacations during summer when
their children were out of school and the weather was nice. In summary, YRS is not a new idea and after 100 years of experimenting, there still is no proof of its benefits --academic or financial--and there is growing evidence that sending kids to school in the heat of summer may actually deter learning. (Source for the History: Billee Bussard, Author SummerMatters.com and Lessons Learned the Hard Way.) 2. Year-Round School - The Big Picture
2.1.
Definitions
and Types Of
Year-Round School
YRS has the benefit of name to be inferred as a positive program since
most people infer from the name that school will be taught every day of
the year and more of anything in our society is presumed to be better. In
fact this is not true, and in most cases discovering this single fact
opens the inquiries as to what exactly is YRS. YRS is known by many names. It
is Year-round School, Alternative Calendar, Extended School Year, Modified
School Year, Continuous Learning Calendar, Education For All Seasons, the
Balanced Calendar, Flexible Scheduling, and the Remedial Calendar. All of
these are terms used to describe what essentially is a year-round school
calendar. In most
cases, the YRS calendar adds no more days; rather it shuffles the current
180-day schedule so that students have 9-week sessions followed by
three-week breaks; it shortens the summer vacation to 5 weeks. 2.2.
NAYRE
National Association for Year-Round Education (NAYRE) is a non-profit
organization founded in part by Dr. Charles Ballinger, and is based out of
San Diego, California. This group openly submits they are a national
advocacy group for year-round education and a clearinghouse for
information supporting year-round education. They promote and sell
reports, studies, and information supporting the YRS concept. They also
provide for fee services that link prospective year-round districts and
schools with consultants who can guide them in exploration and
implementation of YRS. Some of the consultants are school administrators
who have first hand experience implementing YRS. For instance, Mildred
Sexton, Principal, Spratley Middle School, Danville Virginia is listed on
the NAYRE website as a paid consultant. (See http://www.nayre.org/consulting.html)
NAYRE also holds an annual convention to promote the YRS cause and to
provide a path to market for vendors of various services and products,
some of which are entertainment and amusement parks. (See http://www.nayre.org/conference.html#directory). It is interesting to note that the 2002 convention to be held in San Diego
February 9 - 13, 2002 is not an expected intercession period. 2.3.
The Current Educational Environment
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Year-Round Enrollment
Growth in Public Schools
Year-round school enrollment continues to experience sluggish
growth nationwide. Six states house nearly 82 percent of all
students enrolled in a year-round calendar school, while the rest of
the 394,081 students are spread among schools in 38 states.
While 2,162,120 public school students are claimed to be
attending school on a year-round calendar nationwide, nearly 1.8
million of those are concentrated in California, Hawaii, Arizona,
Nevada, Texas and North Carolina, all fast-growing states.
More than half the year-round school enrollment growth of
98,903 in U.S. public schools this year is in three states:
California, Hawaii and Nevada.
California, which houses more than 62 percent of all the
nation’s YR students, has nearly a third of the increase or 32,034
more students on the calendar.
Two
of the five largest year-round states, Arizona and Texas, saw
year-round school totals decline by 22,328. Arizona has 13 fewer
schools on year-round and Texas has 44 fewer, according to recently
published figures by the National Association for Year-Round
Education. |
||||
|
|
2000-2001 |
1999-2000 |
|
|
|
National
Enrollment |
|
|
|
Growth: |
|
|
2,162,120 |
2,063,217 |
98,903 |
53,845 |
|
|
|
|
|
(54% of nation’s YR growth) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
California |
1,345,522 |
1,313,488 |
32,034 |
32,034 |
|
Hawaii |
97,981 |
80,692 |
17,289 |
17,289 |
|
Arizona |
92,072 |
|||