School is often thought of as a five-day work week, weekends free, and sprinkled with seasonal breaks. However, what if there was a new way to approach education? Enter an all-year education system: a schedule with only four days and reorganizes extended breaks (such as a 10-week summer vacation) to shorter, consistent breaks. 

The school district should implement an all-year education system.

When students leave for summer break, they tend to lose all the information they previously learned; thus spending time giving refreshers on information that should’ve been retained. If school was on-going and continuing throughout the year, students would stay academically sharp and ready to learn new information everyday. 

With the increased days added to the schedule, teachers can spend more time teaching and presenting information to their students. Some teachers have to reschedule original ideas due to the majority of the class forgetting prior knowledge. If the school were to be year-round, odds are, information wouldn’t have to be repeated as often as it currently stands.

Test scores would rise if the school switched to year-round. Since students won’t lose grasp on information as often, they are more academically prepared for standardized testing. It would not come as a surprise if average test scores were to rise. Since there is no gap in education, there is less room for error.

Some would argue that students will not be able to get and work at jobs, since there is no downtime for breaks. Majority of jobs (if students have communication and ask) will work with their school schedule, so students can still find ways to work and receive income. Many students fall victim to these issues because they lack one vital skill: communication. If they express that they are in school, management will help find a way to balance both sides, so there is not more unnecessary pressure.

The district should implement a year-round education system, since it sharpens the students’ mindset, gives teachers more time to spread their information, and increases standardized test scoring. School’s purpose is to raise a new generation of leaders, to bring  a stronger and smarter society. If education isn’t properly implemented, the country can’t grow. The current five-day schedule spends more time going backward instead of forward. If the district wants to keep reviewing previous material and stay stuck in the past grades, then they should stick with the current system.

Defined by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) as a school year with no extended breaks in education, but shorter breaks more often or no school on Fridays, year round education (YRE) has been implemented by many districts.

YRE is not the best schedule for students.

Students who take part in many extracurricular activities and/or OnRamps courses may not be able to make the time to get a job during the school year. However, during the extended summer the district has, these students can make time for a job because they have fewer responsibilities than during the school year. With a full year schedule, these students would have a harder time earning their own income, as they would have less time to themselves with the responsibilities of school looming over their shoulders. The entire point of school is to help students learn how to be an adult. However, students need to learn how to manage their income, so getting a summer job can help them in the long run with learning how to manage both their expenses and time.

With a year round schedule causing breaks to get shorter, families would find it harder to plan longer vacations with extended family because they would have to find a time that works for everybody. Families can be spread all across the country. It already can be hard to plan, but if the break is two to four weeks long, it can end up being even harder. This can lead to families taking flights whenever they are cheapest leading to overall attendance dropping.  Students leave early before the semester ends for vacations as it is, so a YRE schedule would magnify this problem.

With YRE,  shorter breaks and students being in school almost every week of the year, burnout would become a problem for some students who feel overworked and sick and tired of going to school everyday and would want a long break from it. The long summer of a typical schedule gives that break. While true that adults don’t get a three month break from everything, unlike school, when adults have a job they are getting paid money that they can use to pay their bills, save up, and buy things they want. School shouldn’t be treated as a full time job if students aren’t getting the benefits of having a full time job.

Students don’t lose all the information they just learned over the summer. They simply have to be reminded about it. While it can be argued that students tend to “forget” everything they learned last year, it also can be argued that having a week to refresh students’ memories can be good. People tend to put things they don’t use into their “long term memory.” Depending on the importance, it can be recalled instantly, or may take a refresher to get to. While sure, it can be harder to remember the information, people still have it, they just need a refresher. An all year schedule wouldn’t change this as anything that is in a person’s brain for more than 20 minutes goes to their long term memory. Even with a different schedule students would still need to spend a week or two reviewing earlier units as people are different and may “forget” concepts faster than others. 

The district does not need to implement a year round education schedule as it would prevent some people from getting full time jobs in the summer, make it harder to plan vacations leading to attendance dropping, and cause burnout to become a severe problem for some students. The entire point of school is to help students grow into fully functioning and productive members of society, but they can’t do that if the schedule doesn’t allow them the time to work an actual job, and causes lower attendance. If the district wants to make a bunch of new problems for both them and their students to figure out, they should implement a year round schedule.