Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

http://www.wcpss.net/year-round/year-round_factsheet.html

Year round school does not mean the kids attend school all year. It is simply a way to fully utilize the buildings.

Multi-track, year-round

Students attend 180 days on each track
Students stay with the same teacher the entire school year.

The year is divided into four quarters with 45 days of instruction followed by 15-day breaks.

Students and their teachers attend one of four tracks, each with its own 45/15 calendar.

At any given time, three tracks of students and their teachers are in school and one track is on vacation.

Each time students and their teachers return from a break, they move to another classroom.

Teachers have the same number of planning days on year-round as traditional calendar.

Students and teachers have the same holidays on year-round as traditional calendar.

Benefits of Year-round calendar:

Multi-track schools can accommodate 20-33% more students in a building.

Saves on construction costs by better utilizing available space.

Saves on operating costs (for example, 6 classes of students can share 5 sets of textbooks, equipment, furniture).

The 15-day breaks provide a time for enrichment and remedial opportunities for students.

For every three schools on a multi-track year-round calendar, that's one school you don't have to build.


By Why Not Here?

Bring on the debate


The debate about year-round schools is an excellent one. Not sure it?’ll ever happen in this town ?… but it should.

While the original poster highlights construction and building efficiencies, I believe there is a more important goal that should propel the dialogue.

Simply put, year-round schooling creates both a better teaching environment for the educator AND a better learning environment for the student.

I?’m no teacher. Just a proud parent. However, even I know that a 3-month interruption in the learning process is nothing more than a glorified ?“step backwards?”.

Case in point ?– how much time do teachers spend at the beginning of the year re-teaching concepts, skills, study habits, etc. to these kids? How much knowledge and information do the kids lose over the summer break?

Logic dictates that a 3-month gap in learning ?– at ANY level ?– will lead to knowledge loss. Even as adults, when we give our minds a ?“break?”, our minds turn to mush. Whether it?’s taking a class or reading a book or keeping up with the news or completing a crossword puzzle or simply surfing the Web for information ?… the reality is that when we don?’t push ourselves mentally, we simply aren?’t as sharp as we could be.

So let?’s take that theory and apply it to our kids. As parents, do we believe that our children are really getting the best educational experience when there?’s a gigantic, 90-day black hole in the learning process?

Now I know there would be lots of hand-wringing and ?“oh that would never work in our family/school?” response to this proposal. Our community sports programs would be the first in line ?… followed quickly by the teachers?’ union.

However, when it comes to education, all of those excuses don?’t hold a candle to what?’s important.

So kudos to ?“Why Not Here??” for raising the topic for conversation.

Now ?… what happens next?

By Proud Pickerington Parent

Fifteen days

According to the original posting, there would be only a fifteen day break, followed by a 45 day of instruction. Is that correct?

School Calendar

Check out this link. It is the schedule calendar for the Wake County Public School system. They have incredible growth and lack the resouces to build additional schools. (Sound familiar?)

http://www.wcpss.net/Calendars/2007-08/07-08-year-round.pdf

I am NOT saying that this is our solution. I AM saying that we should look at this.

Wake County faced incredible resistance to this system at inception. Many people seem to like it now.

Look it over. I could save us a ton of money. (taxes)

By Why Not Here?