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OBSTACLES
Although year-round academic calendars may serve well in the long run, they present short-term practical and financial obstacles that prove difficult to maneuver for low-income school districts; transitioning from a traditional school calendar to a year-long one demands a lot from the employees and officials implementing such a change.
Former San Angelo, Texas public school teacher and current Texas State University professor Dr. Cynthia Opheim has conducted a study regarding the obstacles to transitioning to year-round schooling in Texas public schools.
With year-round schooling, “more planning and cooperation between administrators, faculty, staff… parents, students, and the entire community is necessary,” and administrators are obliged to perform much coordinating even throughout the frequent breaks that a year-long academic calendar will present, as “inevitable enrichment programs” will occur outside of school and over such breaks (Opheim 116).
With a constantly-running school calendar, administrators and other school workers and affiliates are forced to constantly keep up with schedules and upcoming events, lacking any breaks themselves. More breaks during the year may also call for outside-of-school programs, which these individuals will also be responsible for. Such workload may contribute to burnout in school employees and officials, however this does not mean that a traditional school calendar demands any less planning and scheduling, regardless of how long or often school breaks are.
A journalist for Education Week, Madeline Will, covers reports regarding teaching profession. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her work at Education Week has been revolved around teacher policy, recruitment and retention, teacher diversity, teachers’ unions, and classroom practice.
In her 2014 interview, principal of a North Carolina elementary school Gordon Grant advised to “administrators planning to switch to a year-round calendar…[to] take a full year to plan and prepare, coordinate…and make sure the staff is fully committed to the idea” (Will 6). He admits that “some parents and educators are strongly against a year-round calendar…[and argue] that some schools have tried and dropped a year-round calendar as proof that it is just another educational fad” (Will 6).
A school official with direct experience in attempting, but failing, to implement year-round schooling has admitted that it demands extensive scheduling and attention throughout the planning and transition phases. Everyone working within the schedule must be able to see any benefits in such a system in order to make it run smoothly, which can be very difficult to achieve.
It has been argued that year-round school systems are solely a fad, and that they only seem appealing because of their novelty. Yet Grant, an experienced administrator, seems to disagree with this assertion. It is possible that the effort required in switching to a year-round academic calendar may be outweighed by new benefits such a schedule can present.
Dr. Opheim continues to suggest possible risks of omitting long summer breaks by explaining that teachers are traditionally “on 12-month contracts, work for nine months…receive their salary over a 12-month period,” and often find other summer jobs, and “30 percent of teachers take summer jobs to supplement their incomes” (Opheim 116).
With the common factor of underpaid teachers, it may be difficult to convince qualified, dedicated teachers to work for year-long schools while pulling them away from additional sources of income. Year-round school districts may consequently need to increase teacher pay with the schedule transition.
However, on the contrary, year-round schooling may permit for frequent breaks where teachers can take up tutoring jobs or similar part-time occupations to compensate for the lost summer break.
Aside from impacts on faculty and administrators, transitioning to year-round schooling can present other difficulties in the form of monetary obstacles and community-wide disruption.
Dr. Opheim explains that those who object year-round schooling most passionately are afraid of interrupting family-oriented leisure time, along with community programs that thrive in the summer such as Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Camp Fire Girls (Opheim 117).
American students and organizations have grown accustomed to a long, relieving break from a dense and straining stint of working time. The omission of long summer breaks has become a concern for popular programs for children that run on summer vacation time. A solution for these organizations may be adjusting to a year-round academic calendar and functioning during the frequent breaks if needed.
This way, American children affiliated with such groups can even be dedicated to the organization year-round as well as to school. Additionally, impoverished children, who are likely in the greatest need of year-round schooling, are likely less involved with cost-bearing summer programs. As a result, these programs may not even be greatly affected by disadvantaged school districts’ potential transitions to year-round schooling.
Such a transition has ignited recently in several states, and Will reveals that “Michigan and Virginia… aim to reduce the amount of time students, particularly those from low-income families, spend out of school during the summer…both states recently set aside money in their budgets…($1 million and $2 million, for Virginia and Michigan respectively) for…districts that want…a year-round calendar…districts received grants from [Michigan] that added up to $2 million, and two more received $750,000 each” (Will 6).
While year-round schooling may be most beneficial to low-income regions of the United States, they often come with a high initial price tag, and it is these impoverished areas that will have the most adversity in maneuvering these financial barriers. It is commonly difficult for impoverished school districts to achieve such vast amounts of funding.
However, Will proves that states have been willing to fund this cause in the past, and if there is enough necessity for year-round schooling and enough proven benefits come from it, there is a possibility of states more commonly providing school districts with sufficient funds to implement year-round academic calendars in the near future.
Chart by Public Policy Institute of California displaying the sources of public schools' funds. This proves that schools must rely heavily on local property taxes and state allocation. Consequently, locations of low income with lower property taxes will receive less funding.
Graph by Education Week. Students and schools in wealthier areas are more likely to receive higher levels of funding, adding to the difficulty in transitioning to year-round calendars for impoverished school districts.
Will follows by proposing that “many schools aren't equipped with air conditioning to cool them during the hot summer months, and renovations—as well as the additional cooling costs—would be expensive” (Will 6).
While schools could possibly profit from long-term effects of year-round schooling, immediate operation and maintenance costs will add up. Schools will have to continue throughout the whole year to provide air conditioning, heating, refrigeration, and so on.
These effects will hit hardest in low-income districts, conversely the ones most in need of year-round schooling for children. To avoid financial harm, schools transitioning to year-round functioning will need sufficient grants, or else they will have to quickly compensate for the money loss with possible financial benefits of certain year-round schooling methods.
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