This Week with Sara Fitts looks at the pros and cons of balanced calendars in school systems. Traditional calendars have usually had school begin in southern states during the month of August and end in late May. Other systems have started the academic year after Labor Day and ended in June. Basically the school year is made up of 180 days of classes for students - regardless of start and end dates.
The current trend for many school systems is to balance the school calendar in order to keep students in school longer in order to avoid significant breaks in learning. Many believe that students forget too much over the summer vacation. A balanced calendar in education means that schools will have start dates in August and have several breaks built in for vacation days and still end in June having a shorter summer for students - with more chances for sustained learning and fewer chances for "forgetting" what they learn.
Balanced calendars bring pros and cons to the discussion. Among the pros are sustained learning time, a series of regular breaks within the academic year, more balance of time with school and vacation days, more consistency for time-on-task, and less time to forget what was taught over the summer.
Among the cons of balanced calendars in education are the loss of the summer - where many high school kids earn money for college from summer jobs, where many children spend sustained and quality time with the parents with whom they do not live during a traditional academic year - and the increased cost of child-care due to having more breaks in the school year.
There is no significant research at this point to prove that balanced calendars are better for improving learning or test scores. A lot of school systems across the United States are moving to change their calendars from traditional to balanced. There are costs associated with this move that many may not have thought about. The school systems may have higher costs associated with this calendar change.
More to come......
Sara L Fitts is owner and operator of SLF Consulting in Manassas, VA. She is a former teacher, administrator, high school principal, and instructional coach. SLF Consulting provides math tutorials, academic and instructional coaching and consulting, and test prep courses. For more information, visit our website , like us on Facebook , and follow us on Twitter
