As we wind down another school year, I look forward to taking a well deserved break. In the past I would by now have planned vacations, organized my children’s summer camps and known that by the time the lazy days of August set in, we would all be keying up for another school year. So, last Sunday while working in my home office, my ears perked up to Cross Country Checkup. A gentleman on the program was describing the idea of shortening the summer holiday and spreading it out across the school year. There are benefits to this, he said, especially for the struggling learner. It turned out the guest was none other than our former Minister of Education, George Abbott.
There was no shortage of opinions from parents, students and teachers on this topic. Some people liked the idea, others were opposed to it. The reasons for or against were varied and seemed to depend on lifestyle and other circumstances.
We’ve talked about a modified school calendar in an earlier question, but I’m still curious to know what you think of this idea. Bill 36 School Amendment Act (2012) gives school districts permission to explore alternate school calendars, such as a year-round system. What do you think of a shorter summer break with the days off spread out more evenly across the year?
- Eve Gaudet, Director Open Government
I am not opposed to the idea of a year-round system in school. Though it doesn’t give families the summer to spend time together, it would allow kids more time to learn the curriculum and less material would be skipped over. I am already home-schooled because I like to work at my own pace. Since I don’t go to school I can’t say whether or not this would for children that attend school. I would enjoy having a whole year where I can consult with my teachers as to the materials I am learning to give me a better understanding. However, I also think that it is important to have time to spend with family members, and lay back with your feet up. I guess I could say that I am open to the idea. Though, I do like the time where my life doesn’t work on a schedule. I get up most mornings at 4:30 just to go swimming, and then I have to get my school work done in the rest of the day and before supper or I have to listen to my mother. I can’t agree with some people that summer is a great time for kids to socialize, because I am not social normally. I can see the importance of both, summer and school. Guess that my opinion is kind of crazy.
Like to see 2 weeks taken off summer and added to Christmas break. Allows enough time for courses in summer if wanted. Enough time for teachers and students to mentally and physically recover from the intense pace and requirements of the school environment. Allows families enough meaningful family sharing time. More opportunities for families to get holiday time from work for those parents/care givers who don’t get summer time off. B.C. only has a short period of time when families can enjoy weather friendly days so need enough time in summer for camps, trips etc. Many international families who leave at Christmas and Spring Break and miss school to visit overseas as it is. Works well in Australia and many other countries. Students can be more focused with shorter chunks of time. Already see that with longer spring break. Teachers are more energized for teaching as well. More time at breaks supports more travel opportunities for school trips without missing valuable school time to do this.
I am completely against this scheme. Summer is the often the only time children get to experience a less scheduled life and have room to explore passions and interests, such as in week-long camps. Already they are forced to be well-rounded, and succeed in every subject, regardless aptitudes and interests. If they don’t have a summer, when exactly will they get a chance to learn about themselves and what they excel at, in a process-oriented, non-pressured way?
None of the schools in BC were designed or configured to be used during the summer months – they lack air conditioning or other cooling systems, window screens to keep out mosquitoes, most lack covered play areas to keep kids out of the worst of the summer sun, and the air quality in most (if not all) is terrible, even in June & September let alone July & August. I doubt even the newest schools have been adequately outfitted to operate 12 months a year – that 2 month off-time is typically required for in-depth maintenance, gym resurfacing, etc.
For many people all round school is just an easy way to get free childcare. Oh they talk about learning loss but really its about keeping the children in school so they don’t have to find summer care. But stop and think for a moment. We have a long rainy season, so Summer means outside to most Lowermainlanders. Biking, swimming, camping, or just running about in a park. Things you can’t or don’t want to do in the Winter. So unless you take the courses outside, many students won’t be learning cooped up inside. Instead they will be like many of their parents; staring outside from they’re office cubicle on a hot Aug day wishing they were outside.
I’m curious about your comment that for many people year round school is just an easy way to get free childcare. How so?
I’m a single parent. My working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. I live about a half hour drive from my work. During traditional school hours I drop my daughter off at daycare at 7:30 a.m. and I pick her up about 5:30 p.m. The daycare takes her to and from school. During the times when school is closed (Christmas break, Spring break, and summer) my routine is the same. I drop her off at the same time and I pick her up at the same time. The only difference is she spends the full day at her daycare. I pay the same amount to the daycare each month regardless of whether she is there only before and after school or if she is there all day. If I have holidays and I don’t take her to the daycare I do not get a discount. Currently she attends a group daycare that has many children and many childcare providers and the owners have calculated everything out and made the payments the same for each month. When she was at a family daycare I paid different rates each month because the daycare provider charged by the day and she had different rates if the child was there before and after school or all day, but if my daughter was in year round school with her I’d end up paying the same over the course of a year.
Most people I know that work full time and require daycare for their children are in the same position I am in. In my set of friends and acquaintances I can only think of one person who works from 8:00 until 2:00 and only needs childcare for the summer.
You also mentioned the long rainy season in the Lower Mainland and all the activities that can be done ine the summer. However, BC is not all about the Lower Mainland. I’m sure that there are many activities that families could enjoy doing in December; skiing, snowshoeing, outdoor skating, etc. in other parts of BC.
I personally don’t think that the traditional school year should be abandonned in favour of year round, but I do wish that there could be a combination of both so that those people who want year round are able to have it and those who want traditional can have that.
The cited benefits are strange to me, because I’m not aware of any studies that show that academic achievement improves with year round schooling. Research has shown that there is a difference in learning during the summer, where high SES kids continue to learn reading and math at the same rate whereas low SES kids’ learning can flatline (there is actually very little learning “loss”). I don’t know of research that shows that inserting smaller breaks offers help in this regard, I think it is just spreading the loss or gain across the year. I don’t want to come across as a pig-head on this – I would really like to read the research that supposedly shows the improvements noted by Minister Abbott. If anyone knows of research that shows statistically significant improvement, please let me know.
The Cross Country Checkup show is full of holes too. The opening segment fails to mention the high number of school districts in California and Colorado have gone back to summers off. They didn’t see the academic gains, although I’m not sure of all the politics behind the switch back.
Minister Abbott also says there is no savings, which may not be true. Currently the MoE pays for summer school directly. If summer break is shortened enough, there won’t be summer school. Surely that is a cost savings?
Callers into CCC mention logistical problems with 12 week breaks. First, I don’t believe we have 12 week breaks in BC. School usually ends June 28-ish and starts after Labor Day. That’s 9 weeks in my books. Secondly, logistics are a problem for families, but that should not be an educational-specific concern. MLAs and elected officials should all consult on improving social programs, and school boards’ primary concern should not be child care.
The caller at 34:50 in CCC offers a view that fits very well with mine and what I’d like to get across on this issue.
With regard to changing the calendar I think I would like to point out that at this point in the summer, under some models of balanced calendars, kids would be heading back to school next week (first week of August). On paper, a balanced calendar looks better, but do you want your kids home when they can be outside (July-Aug) or home for a month in the lower mainland rain (Oct-May and June this year).
After a month my kids have done swimming lessons and been camping once-we have more camping and sports camps planned for Aug. These enrichment activities would be limited underb a balanced calendar as it is much more expensive to take vacactions in winter months comparing camping in the summer to destination travel in the winter. The model pitched by Surrey a few years back had kids home for entire months of Dec and March. My kids would be stuck inside for March and December whereas now we are mostly outside. Current system is not perfect but it works well. I vote for status quo.
Brad, your line of thought is very much like mine. Camping, visiting my parents, swimming in the lake, bike riding, hiking and kids camp. There is no way to do this in just one month, especially if there is 2 weeks of bad weather, and there is no way to do any of this in BC during March or December.
This thread seems a good place to bring up a concept that public officials seldom address due to its potential to reduce their importance. I suggest severely curtailing the role of schools in the life of our communities to what is absolutely needed. To ensure literacy and numeracy, those under 14 years of age should be provided instruction if and only if their families do not provide a sufficient level of reading and numeracy in their homes. In order to encourage parents to contribute at the level they can, cash rewards equal to double what is spent on those that attend school should be provided for the successfully home schooled. For middle and high school aged children, any state funded programs should be limited to hard core academics for the top 5%. Those that go straight to work at 13 should be given tax credits similar to what is spent on their peers at school. Our system has way too much government control over people’s lives presently. It wastes years of our citizens most productive years on low quality socialization, sports, music and art. These needs are best provided in community clubs and private academies. Rather than discussing whether the schools should hold our children prisoner all 12 months of the year, I propose institutional exposure for typical students be limited to 3 weeks of testing per year up to age 13 with none afterwards.
All care for high maintenance citizens needs to be outside of the education system with families who look after their own rewarded with tax benefits and the negligent punished with an extra tax burden.
Food security needs to be returned to the welfare ministry, First nation’s cultural stuff needs to be done by families on their own nickel. Strongstart, kindergarten and all other types of socialist daycare should be eliminated.
How about half a dozen of one and 6 of the other?
I’ve heard that many districts have some “traditional calendar schools” as well as “year round schools.”
Let the people choose…
In the end, the school calendar has the same amount of instructional days, so I’d work in either system & likely would see better student gains in the year-long system.
The more we talk about this issue as a family, the more we find ourselves on the fence…
I agree with the idea of shortening the summer holiday break (to 1 month) and spreading some additional days or weeks off around the rest of the year.
I think we should continue to have July and August off for a couple of reasons. Lots of students work summer jobs and need this income to help pay for post secondary education. I live in Victoria so a lot of the student jobs are related to tourism and these jobs are only available in the summer.
Another reason is our schools are not set up for teaching in the summer. There are no air conditioners in most schools and the classrooms heat up to unbearable levels in June, let alone July or August. Children are not going to be learning much when they are sitting in a pool of sweat. They could install air conditioning but it would cost too much especially since they would still have to heat the schools during winter breaks for the custodians.
I also wonder how this would work for grade 12 students and their provincial exams. Would some districts write their exams in July or would everyone still do it in June? Also, if it was later that is making it very tight for students to decide on post secondary.
In the past summer has presented opportunities for experiential learning, but the widening social economic gap is contributed to greatly over the two months of summer break. Lucky children get wonderful experiences, fabulous books, and positive interactions with families and peers. In July and August many of BC’s children have lost their source of daily food, positive fun-filled days and the opportunity to be respected. They are left on their own, to their own devices. Until we address the number of children living in poverty in BC we need to offer year round schooling.
Do we really need two months of interrupted learning? Those days are gone- and students need more time to be engrossed in the minute to minute day by day learning that is part of their daily life not separated from it.
Deborah,
I think you are describing a societal problem. If the problem is poverty, then the fix should be to fix poverty, to provide food for kids and to provide outdoor activities for kids. The fix is not to keep all kids in the school year round. That is a band-aid, and as research clearly shows, it does not solve problems of academic achievement.
I agree with Bev. It should be a choice initiative. Summer holidays, as presently constituted, are a cultural icon of generations. A whole child care industry has grown up around summer camps for kids as has the notion of lazy days of summer just to kick back and relax. For many students, summer is a time to learn and continue to grow by the rich experiences parents provide for them in travel or in various summer activities. For others, documented by research, the long summer breaks are detrimental to retention of learned skills, especially reading and math. Districts should provide calendar choices for parents for student enrollment. Those that prefer an alternate school calendar, as opposed to the traditional one, should be able to have their children attend such schools. The associated businesses dealing with child care will adapt. Winter camps for skiing and snowboarding would likely arise. Most high school students I know work year round at part time jobs to make money…not just the summer. For many folks, a one month sampler vacation distributed across the seasons will likely become a future icon and tradition as the present fondness for two months of summer holidays. For schools, student attendance would likely improve and staff sick leave decrease. Start with a few schools in each district or coordinated with seasonal industries and build as demand requires.
What a great point of view and idea! I like choice!
Hi Gordon,
I’ve actually looked at the research and there isn’t really anything that shows that year-round schooling improves learning. Many schools in the US have tried year-round schooling and the results are very clear. There is no improvement in academic achievement.
Studies show that a 2 month break can be moderately detrimental to students that are at the bottom of the social economic status. As families have more money, the detriment goes away.
Studies do not show that shifting the 2 month break to smaller breaks throughout the year offers any relief. I blogged about this, and provide links to research:
http://physicsoflearning.com/edblog/year-round-schooling-part-1/
The first two years of Post secondary education in my family is paid for by summer jobs from grade 7 to grade 12. Any interference in the ability of students to attend university debt free is an attack on their futures. I would suggest that those so wealthy that they can afford university without working should fill their idle time in the summers helping out their less fortunate neighbors. I think it would be just another attempted power grab by the nanny state. As an alternative, I suggest eliminating spring break, Christmas Holidays and reading break and making the last 2 weeks of june and the first two weeks of September also free of school.
Students (and teachers) burn out. There’s a reason why education at all levels has breaks built into the schedule. While I agree that having the opportunity to work 3 months straight would put more money into student pockets, those breaks are a necessity for the mental health and well-being of students and staff alike. As teachers cannot take vacation days during the school calendar, you would notice shortly after the implementation of your compression idea an uptick in sick days taken during the year and this would have a detrimental impact on the quality of student learning.
I am fully in favour of shortening the summer holiday break (to 1 month) and spreading some additional days or weeks off around the rest of the year.
One challenge will be summer employment for postsecondary students, who end up being the primary staff demographic at summer camp programs.
I’m also thrilled to have full day kindergarten so that I don’t have to worry about juggling part-time daycare into the mix.
I would certainly like more information to read on the rationale behind this type of proposal. For example, you mentioned some students that are struggling to learn might benefit from such a schedule.
I remember as a child, how much I looked forward to summer’s off. No homework, no rigid schedule of having to be up at the crack of dawn and at school by 9am, sitting through a boring class trying to make sense of the information I was being taught. Summers are what we live for. Children and Parents alike.
If anything, I would suggest the labour minister consider creating a modified work calendar in which all employees benefit from having the summers off. Bring in a temporary workforce of expatriats for any businesses that require personnel.
I understand the conundrum of child care, being a single parent for 6 years. So, if the work calendar aligned with the school calendar wouldn’t we all benefit? Parents could stay home with their children to teach and give the lessons of life that will help them through their next school year.
In other questions I’ve already stated that I am in favour of a “year round” program. In fact, my daughter has been on a waiting list to attend the one school in my district that has a year round program for over a year now and I doubt very much if she’ll be able to get in for the 2012/2013 school year either. The school is so popular that if you are not in the catchment area, it is very difficult to get into the school. I’m sure it doesn’t help that the school is located in an area of our city that is being developed very heavily at this time too.
I have several reasons for hoping that she can be transferred into this school. For one thing, I believe that with this school’s schedule, she’ll be able to remember more of her studies. They run on a three month term, one month vacation cycle so the children are not out of classes for more than about 5 weeks at any given break period. But more importantly to me is the timing of when this school has the vacation months. I am a single parent and it is extremely difficult for me to get vacation time at certain times of the year due to the nature of my work. It is almost impossible for me to take time off in May, June, July, and the first part of August. I am also never able to get time off around the Christmas/New Year’s holidays. Since I am at work during these periods, my daughter spends the summer holidays and Christmas vacation time at her daycare full time. Not always a fun prospect. With the schedule of the year round school, she would be off school for a month in April, August, and December. I would be able to plan my vacation time for April, or late August, or early December and she and I would be able to spend more time together.
Bev:
The question that immediately comes to mind is to what level those that make life-style choices that lead to dependence should be rewarded. It seems as though the functional people are being made to carry more and more of this weight by increased taxes and the absence of meaningful contribution by the single parent families. Rather than make those that produce conform to the whims of those that consume, why not create conditions where bad lifestyle choices are overtly NOT rewarded?
Bruce,
The moderators may say that this is off topic, but I’ll post anyway and hope that they allow it. I have no idea why you think that because people are in single parent families that we are not making meaningful contributions and that “functional people” are being made to carry more and more weight by increased taxes. There are many reasons why a person may be a single parent that have nothing to do with bad lifestyle choices – being a widow or widower comes to mind immediately.
As for contributing – I cannot say for other single parent families, but I can say for myself that I put in my 40 hour week each and every week and have done so for my entire adult life barring the 6 months I took off for maternity leave. Yes, my daughter is in daycare, but I pay for that myself without any special subsidies from any government. I pay all the taxes that I’m supposed to pay and get no favoured treatment.
I thought the whole idea behind this forum was choice and flexibility in education. So, for my situation, having a year round school would work for my family so that I can spend more time with my child. As I said in my post, my school district already has one school that runs on a year round program so I’ve asked for her to be transferred there. I didn’t say ALL schools in the district should be year round – just that I liked the idea of year round education. If you want a school or two in your district to remove the Christmas and Spring breaks so that your children can have three months off in order to work, then go lobby your school board. Maybe there are other families who want the same. The whole idea is people would have choice and flexibility so that they can have what works for them.
Very well said Bev; I hold an enormous amount of respect for you.
PS:
My own mother became a single mother (left with three children to raise back in the 1970′s) when my deadbeat dad walked-out on my family when I was six years old (my brother was four, my sister was eight). My mother (who had been a non-tax-paying homemaker) upgraded her skills at the local community college and quickly got a job working for the municipal utilities commission (where she ended-up working for 30+ years). During this time, she paid taxes and took charity from no one (she even returned a gift basket sent to my family one Christmas by our church). Also, my mother single-handedly paid-off the mortgage on our home (by ~ age 40), and successfully raised three children (two of whom became university-educated and went on to become very productive, tax-paying career women). Single mothers like my mother, and yourself, deserve the highest level of respect from society.
I am glad that your mother made a fine single mother. This does not change the fact that single parent families are much more prone to dependance and poverty than unbroken traditional families. Any policy that recognises this lifestyle choice as legitimate further spreads the twin curses of poverty and disfunction. Heather, it is likely that your mother would not want her success leveraged by those hellbent on spreading misery throughout the land.