Many school systems have different ways of carrying out the daily activities of their education system. One such difference lies in the aspect of scheduling and calendar.
While many years ago there was basically only one type of school calendar used, today there are several different ones in action. The most common we call the traditional school calendar.
In the traditional school calendar, students attend school from August to May and receive a couple of months off for summer break along with a break during the spring and at Christmas.
Some feel that the break during the summer is too long and that children lose gained information during this time. Others feel that the months from August to May are too long and more breaks are needed throughout them. The idea of having more shorter breaks during the school year lead to the idea that we now typically call year round schools.
For the past eight years Sacramento has followed this year round school calendar. They adopted the calendar in order to help solve a problem with overcrowding of schools and the lack of funding to build new facilities. The school board staggered the students over the school calendar year so that more students could be educated in a smaller amount of space.
However this year the school system has decided that it may be best to go back to the traditional school calendar that they once knew.
The system’s enrollment has dropped and funds have been allocated for more buildings. Therefore the need that once existed is not as strong as before.
The district believes that it can actually save money by doing away with some of the year round school calendars. While many teachers like the calendar and are protesting the change, the board declares that if the change is not made funds will be have to be cut that were set aside for reducing student teacher ratio in a number of classes.
So far the system’s research has shown that students on traditional calendars score as better or higher as those on year round schedules.
Homeschooling- Year Round School
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