Year-round school has plusses

Many of us still remember those days when the calendar was rhythmically predictable from year to year.

When June came, along with it came the long-awaited (by students, anyway) last day of school. What followed was a summer, languid for some, laborious for others – but for all, “…no more lessons, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks.”

Then, along about Labor Day, students far and wide headed back to classes, and another school year was in full swing.

Life has not been like that, at least not for everyone, for some time.

Monday, some 2,800 Durham Public Schools students picked up their book bags and headed back to class.  As one would expect on the first day of school, there was enthusiasm all around.

Fatima Castro, a newly minted fifth-grader at Easley Elementary, was “excited because we get to go to a new grade,” she told The Herald-Sun’s Jamica Ashley.

Mike Fuga, principal of Rogers-Herr Middle School, probably spoke for many of his peers. “I couldn’t sleep” Sunday night,” he said. “I was up through the night going over things that could happen. I’m just like the kids. It’s about sustaining the energy through day 180.”

Sustaining that energy, research shows, is probably a bit easier for Fuga and the other principals, teachers and students (not to mention their parents) for which school opened this week. Although fewer than one in 10 DPS students follow the year-round schedules, the model has many advantages.

The more frequent, shorter breaks give students and teachers a chance to recharge more often, physically and mentally. “At the end of nine weeks, the teachers can reflect on the last nine weeks and prepare for the next time,” Easley principal Timothy Gibson said. “We have more time to really prepare.”

And ditching the nearly three-month hiatus of the traditional calendar substantially reduces the amount of learning loss that occurs during the break.  Teachers need to spend less time reviewing and reviving skills atrophied or forgotten over the summer.

That loss can be especially acute for students from the most socio-economically challenged homes, who already are struggling with catching and keeping up with more advantaged peers.  While summer travel, enrichment camps and books may be the norm in economically stable families, students in many Durham homes have little or any chance for intellectual stimulus when school’s not in session.

The traditional school calendar is rooted in an agrarian economy that long since has diminished.  But habits, the convenience of planning getaways for multi-child families, the desire or need for summer-long work opportunities – and, yes, the siren call of the tourism industry – have given the September-May calendar a grip that’s hard to loosen.

So, for those elementary middle school students back in class in Durham – you may be jealous of your friends still embracing the lazy days of summer. But you can gloat a bit when your first nine weeks are over and you get a few days off.

And you may well be gaining a stride or two academically.