Why is there a hesitation towards changing the calendar?
Implementing a balanced school year or not is one that has conjured up a lot
of debate over the years. A balanced school year involves essentially rearrangement
of the traditional school year to provide several smaller breaks evenly spaced throughout the year
instead of having one long summer vacation which happens to fall under a traditional school
year. This long summer vacation was originally designed for children to help on farms in a
rural economy, which is now rapidly shrinking. Many students require a lot of
catching up to go back to the level they were once at before their summer vacation had
begun. There are a whole variety of reasons as to why schools are considering the switch but the
end result which is achieved by making this change, is a better use of time and resources. The
very aspect of implementing a balanced school year first arose to solve the issue of summer
learning loss.
Tyee Elementary School. Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Chief Maquinna Elementary School. Vancouver, BC, C...
GERARD MCCALLUMTracy A. Huebner, Senior Research Associate, in her article "Year-Round
Schooling" describes summer learning loss as the process of acclimating to new teachers,
classmates, classroom procedures and the struggle to remember the skill and content that
students have not used in months(83). Vanessa St. Gerard is the editor of Communicator. In her
article "Year-Round Schools Look Better All the Time", Gerard also points out that summer
learning loss is associated with students "losing some of their math and spelling skills, and many
lose reading skills over the period of the traditional school break"(57). A balanced school year
can be broken down into either of these two different schedules, a single-track schedule or a
multi-track schedule. A single-track schedule is one whereby teachers and students will be
attending school at similar times and be given...