STOP YEAR-ROUND SCHOOL IN AUBURN
Year Round School in Auburn
A report to the Auburn City Schools Board of Education
November 7, 1998
Stop Year Round School Citizen's Group300 N. Dean Rd. P.O. Box 5172Auburn, AL 36830-5045
Û 1998, Stop Year Round School Citizen's Group, Inc.Written permission required for reproduction of any part of this document.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2 INTRODUCTION
3 BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF YRS IN AUBURN
4 REASONS GIVEN FOR YEAR ROUND SCHOOL AND RESPONSES
4.1 BOARD CHARGE 4.2 AUBURN 2020 DIRECTIVE 4.3 CONTINUITY OF LEARNING4.4 OVERALL ACADEMIC IMPROVEMENT4.5 AT-RISK STUDENT IMPROVEMENT4.6 TEACHER BURN OUT
5 OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
5.1 CONCERNS FOR TEACHERS 5.2 BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS5.3 COMMUNITY REASONS
6 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
7 SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS TO AUBURN CITY SCHOOLS
8 CONCLUSIONS
9 REFERENCES
10 BIBLIOGRAPHY
11 APPENDICES
11.1 COMMUNITY COMMENTS FROM PETITIONING, 3 NOV 199811.2 EXPERIENCE OF OTHER SCHOOL SYSTEMS WITH YEAR ROUND SCHOOL11.3 OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION11.4 FULL TEXT OF DOCUMENTS11.5 FULL TEXT OF PAPERS
Executive Summary
Auburn City Schools (ACS) is evaluating the desirability of year round school (YRS).
This document has been assembled from many sources to address the reasons given for instituting year round school in Auburn. The study shows that:
1) Directives from the Board of Education and Auburn 2020 were to study extending the school year - not alternative calendar or YRS;2) YRS doesn't provide continuity of learning (just the opposite);3) YRS doesn't bring academic gains for the students overall or at-risk students in particular; and 4) Teacher burn out is only sometimes alleviated with YRS.
There are some very valid concerns about this calendar. Teachers' opportunities for summer work on advanced degrees or employment will be limited. There will be in-creased costs to implement YRS, not only monetarily but also in terms of family and community disruption. YRS means a smaller window of opportunity for other educa-tional experiences like camps, employment, recreational programs, vacations and quality family time.
The conclusion: reject the YRS concept, carefully evaluate the several sizeable changes recently made in the school system, and spend our resources on proven pro-grams and policies that give the greatest help in improving the academic achievement of our children.
Introduction
The year round school concept is simple -- spread the school days out over more of the year by increasing both the number and the length of the breaks in the school year. There is a myriad of ways to do this.
The Auburn City Schools administration examined and rejected the concept of year round school in 1992 and is revisiting the issue in 1998. The idea is controversial. This document is an attempt to identify and respond to the reasons ACS has given for making the calendar change, as well as providing information on other aspects of the issue and suggestions for change. Hopefully, this document will clarify the issue.
Since 1 September 1998, six major reasons have been given for changing the ACS traditional calendar to a year round calendar. Each is listed below and addressed in a section of this document. None have academic merit.
The reasons are:
1. The Board of Education charged the Auburn City Schools administration to study the year round school concept.2. The Auburn 2020 report directed Auburn City Schools to examine the year round school concept.3. "Continuity of learning" is enhanced under year round school.4. Overall academic achievement increases with year round school.5. Year round school will improve the performance of at-risk students.6. Year round school is needed to reduce teacher burnout.
Each reason above is quite distinct from the others, and requires a different set of facts to address it. Each is addressed in this document.
Brief history of the investigation of YRS in Auburn
An Auburn City Schools committee (Action Team Number 6) examined both ex-tended program and YRS in 1992. They rejected the idea of year round school and produced the attached document. (Document 1, TO: STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE) The primary conclusions were:
Extend the school day by one (1) hour three (3) days a week for grades 5-12, Increase the number of student school days by 5 (from 175 to 180 days), Maintain the traditional school year, and Expand the summer program.
(See also Document 20, Guest Column in the Opelika-Auburn News, 27 Oct 1998 by Lauren Lancaster Pugh, a member of the 1992 committee.)
In October 1997, another Auburn City Schools year round school committee was formed. It met during the 1997 -- 1998 school year and convened again on 1 Sep 1998.
The Committee inducted about 17 new members on 1 September 1998, to bring the total to approximately 52. At this meeting, the Committee rejected their interim report on year round school, and was charged with creating a new interim report. Subcommittees were formed to address areas of concern. A Facts Subcommittee was formed and charged with determining the academic merit of year round school. On 15 Sep, the Facts Subcommittee received for evaluation the year round school literature collected by the Committee during the previous year -- over 80 documents including research papers, studies, and articles amounting to over 1000 pages. From this information, the subcommittee concluded that only 14 of these documents were "fact, not opinion, statistically significant, single track YRS" and therefore pertinent to Auburn. It is primarily from this information that the subcommittee produced their recommendation.
In early September, the Auburn City Schools administration declined to release the names of the Committee members (Document 2, Opelika-Auburn News, 11 Sep 1998). Later the names were released to the public (Document 3, Opelika-Auburn News, 18 Sep 1998).
The Committee met again on 1 October 1998. One result of this meeting was the adoption of two contradictory Fact Sheets that were subsequently printed and mailed to the parents of Auburn City School students. Examples of their contradictions are in the following table.
Fact Sheet One
Fact Sheet Two
"With these problems acknowledged, a review of these studies indicates that under a year-round school there is:
Inconclusive evidence of an increase of overall academic achievement (emphasis added)."
"YRS students do as well or better than traditional calendar students."
"Inconclusive evidence of social improvements for example better attendance, better attitude, less vandalism, etc."
"Most studies report increased student attendance in YRS."
The committee also announced the holding of a public meeting on year round school on 12 Oct 1998. The formal announcement of this meeting and associated PTA meetings was made to Auburn City School student parents on 7 Oct 1998, with a flyer that was sent home with students. A newsletter was mailed to parents, arriving on 9 or 10 Oct 1998 (depending on mail district), that included the contradictory fact sheets and the dates of the public meeting and PTA public meetings.
The public meeting was held on 12 Oct 1998 at Auburn High School. Attendees were invited to write their questions only on paper supplied at the meeting. The questions were screened by a panel of five, before being passed to the modera-tor, who sorted them and asked the committee to respond.
At the conclusion of the meeting, there were over 50 questions left unanswered (personal communication with Dr. Ley, meeting moderator. See also Document 5, Opelika-Auburn News, 15 Oct 1998 and Document 25, Auburn Bulletin, 7 Nov 1998).
Subsequently, PTA meetings were held at all schools where attendees could direct questions about year round school to panels (different at each school). These concluded on 21 1998. Some results of these meetings are cited below.
a) Dr. Martin, at the Auburn Early Education Center PTA meeting, 15 Oct 1998, said that remediation during intersessions could cost $1,700,000. At the Cary Woods PTA meeting, 21 Oct 1998, he cited this same figure as an upper limit that would include transportation and meals during intersession.
b) Also at the Auburn Early Education Center PTA meeting, 15 Oct 1998, Ms. Jean Spicer who works with "welfare" moms in her job pointed out that with welfare reform these parents must hold a job to qualify for food stamps but can't afford childcare for the intersessions. Therefore, she said that many at-risk children would become latchkey children during intersessions.
c) Several teachers at the Cary Woods PTA meeting, 21 Oct 1998, said it would be difficult to establish the trusting and stable relationship necessary for elementary students' maximum learning in the 1 or 2 week remediation period during intersession. A teacher at the Ogletree PTA meeting, 26 Oct 1998, seconded this concern. At the lower grades the formation of a trusting relationship is very important and this simply cannot happen in a week of in-tersession.
Summary Time-line for 1998 year round school investigation conducted by Auburn City Schools.
Date
Event
Fall 1997
First committee meetings held.
1 Sep 1998
Committee meeting held. Summary year round school document rejected as being too biased. Subcommittees were formed, including the Facts Subcommittee which was charged with determining academic merit of year round school
14 Sep 1998
Auburn City Schools releases copies of 1000 pages of literature for the Facts Sub-committee to read and interpret.
1 Oct 1998
Full Committee meets again to hear report from Facts Subcommittee. Committee adopts two conflicting Facts Sheets and agrees to send them to the public. Neither is the sheet that most members of the Facts Subcommittee expected to be presented to the Committee (Document 24, Memo to ACS Alternative Calendar Committee, dated Nov 3, 1998 and Memo to Dr. Martin, dated Oct 4, 1998).
Dr. Martin announces Town Meeting on 12 Oct 1998.
7 Oct 1998
Parents informed of Town Meeting by flyer.
9 - 10 Oct 1998
Parents receive Auburn City Schools Committee conflicting fact sheets by mail.
11 Oct 1998
Opelika-Auburn News announces Town Meeting to be held the next day. This is the only city-wide announcement.
12 Oct 1998
Town Meeting held. 400 attend.
12-26 Oct 1998
Special PTA meeting/forums held on year round school. Questions and answers.
26 Oct to 3 Nov 1998(7 days)
Committee time to hear, digest, investigate comments from citizens and formulate responses and investigate issues and citizen concerns (NOTE: this is only seven days).
3 Nov 1998
Final committee meeting held. No discussion of public input. 45 minute meeting.
4 Reasons given for year round school and responses.
4.1 Board Charge
"On March 11, 1997, the Board of Education charged the administration to set up a committee to study the ramifications of an alternative/extended year calendar" (Document 6, Fact Sheet for Alternative Calendar Exploration Committee, p. 1). There is no record in the minutes of the 11 March 1997 Board of Education meet-ing that shows the administration being asked to investigate year round school (Document 7, ACS fax dated 9/16/98). In a memo following that board meeting, Dr. Ferne Garrett, Associate Superintendent, says the board has "instructed the administration to set up a committee to study the ramifications of an alterna-tive/extended school year (Document 8, Memo to Calendar Committee dated March 21, 1997).
In fact, back in Nov 1997, the name of the current Committee was the "Extended Year Exploration" committee (Document 9, Extended Year Exploration Agenda). The current committee should be considering only extending the year, not year round school that has the same number of days.
It is worth noting that the primary recommendations by the ACS 1992 year round school committee were to extend the school day, and to extend the school year, as ways of improving learning (Document 1, TO: STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE).
4.2 Auburn 2020 Directive
Ms. Lynda Rainer, in the Opelika-Auburn News (Document 10, Opelika-Auburn News, 14 Sep 1998) referred to the "--2020 directive--" as a reason to investigate year round school. Dr. Martin referred to the 2020 subcommittees that were directing ACS to investigate YRS (Document 22, Opelika-Auburn News, 10 Sep 1998).
In the Auburn 2020 report, two subcommittees of the Education Committee rec-ommended that the ACS School Board be encouraged to evaluate options for "--revising and extending the school calendar--" (Document 11, Auburn 2020, pp. 22 & 26). The Family and Community Committee recommended that for 11 -- 15 year olds, we "extend the school year and extend the use of our school buildings past the traditional school day" (Document 11, Auburn 2020, p. 111).
Extending the school year is not year round school. "Extended School Year is the lengthening of the school year from 175 instructional days up to 240 instructional days. Auburn City Schools is NOT considering this option" (Document 6, Fact Sheet for Alternative Calendar Exploration Committee, front page, emphasis in original).
Extending the school day (as suggested on p. 111 of Auburn 2020) is not year round school. Extending the school day is the lengthening of the school day by an hour or so. Auburn City Schools is not considering this option despite the fact that this is one of the few proven ways to improve academic performance (Frazier et al., 1998)
4.3 Continuity of learning
It has been suggested that a year round calendar will provide a greater continuity of learning by reducing the length of the summer break. In a letter about YRS pub-lished in the Opelika-Auburn News, 18 Sep 1998, the President of the ACS Board of Education wrote, "The only difference is longer breaks throughout the year and a shorter break in the summer. The premise is more continuity of learning " (Document 3, Opelika-Auburn News, 18 Sep 1998, p. A-5). Year round school (YRS) can reduce the summer break to 6 or 7 weeks.
However, summer learning loss doesnÌt happen in all academic areas nor does it happen with all children. One study (Cooper et al., 1996) investigates academic loss during the summer vacation. This was not an empirical study, but a review of several empirical studies. It found that some students gain, some lose, but most show little change on standardized tests between spring and fall. Perhaps most important is their conclusion that children who have the opportunity to do things during the summer improve on tests of some subjects and return better off than when they left in the spring. Those children who do not have these advantages either show no improvement or, in some cases, loss.
YRS also introduces another break in the school year compared to the traditional calendar. This gives the students one more time to forget what they are learning. As one parent at the Auburn High School PTA meeting, 20 Oct 1998, pointed out, breaks in the school year are particularly difficult for children with learning disabilities to handle. These students do much better with a consistent schedule.
YRS can also lengthen the current winter and spring breaks to 3 weeks (see sam-ple calendar D in ACS Newsletter, Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar). This gives students more time to forget. KneeseÌs comment that "In some single-track designs there are shorter intersession periods, which may produce as advantage of greater learning retention" (Kneese, 1996, p. 70) suggests that rather than serving to provide a continuity of learning, intersessions cause learning loss.
In the middle and high schools, where single subjects are taught by individual teachers (science, math, English), year-round school amounts to Block Schedul-ing, which already exists at Auburn High School. Block Scheduling provides up to twelve months for student forgetting between courses. For example, a student may take a math course for 18 weeks in Fall 1998, finish in January 1999 and not see another math book until January 2000 under Block Scheduling. This causes a long "startup" period with Block Scheduling. This is not "continuity of learning." It is, rather, a very lengthy time for forgetting.
(Note: Implementing Block Scheduling is a well-known technique to begin the transition to year-round school without the public understanding the significance (Gee, (1997) pp. 794 & 795).)
"Continuity of learning" does not take place in year round school (or block sched-uling). It is not a reason to switch to year round school because YRS provides greater discontinuity of learning than a traditional calendar.
4.4 Overall Academic Improvement
One reason given for adopting some form of YRS is that it can increase the aca-demic performance of all students. The literature distributed by Auburn City Schools and others does not support academic improvement due to changing the calendar. Dr. Freeman, from Auburn City Schools, echoed this at the Dean Road PTA meeting on year round school, 15 Oct 1998, and at the Ogletree PTA meeting, 26 Oct 1998, when she said:
"You can change the calendar and it won't improve a thing."
This statement is supported by several recently published articles made available to the public by the Auburn City Schools. For example:
Overall, findings from year round schooling studies have been inconclusive; Thus, no body of solid empirical evidence exists to support the proposition that year round schooling improves achievement" (Frazier et al., 1998, pp. 495-496).
"Analysis of a number of student outcomes (basic skills gains, absences, promotion rates, number of books read, and reading levels) found no significant differences in favor of the year-round students (Campbell, 1994, p. 24).
"Yet practitioners moving toward year-round education have little basis to expect that in and of itself YRE will significantly accelerate achievement unless a dedicated movement to educational reform, including factors such as utilization of the intersession for remediation and curricula changes is accomplished." (Kneese, 1996, p. 71).
(Excerpts from the quoted articles follow this page along with a map showing the academic impact of YRS.)
4.5 At-Risk Student Improvement
Of concern to any school system is the low achievement of at-risk students. The number of at-risk students in the ACS district is 537 as cited at PTA meetings. There are about 4100 students enrolled in the district schools. The advantage of YRS for at-risk students is the possibility that remediation during the intersessions might help. Unfortunately this promise has not been fulfilled. As was pointed out at the Cary Woods PTA meeting, the suggestion that 9 weeks of failure can be remedied in one week of intersession is unrealistic.
Interestingly, Fact Sheet 2 (Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar), provided by Auburn City Schools, claimed that year round school helped at-risk students. Several references were cited. However, these references DO NOT support this claim.
Put simply, the references were misused in Fact Sheet 2 to justify year round school.
The following paragraphs examine these studies. The full text of these studies is in the Appendix.
Contrary to the assertion in the fact sheet, these papers show that YRS, even with remediation, is unlikely to help at-risk students. Three of the studies (Greenfield, (1994), Kneese and Knight (1995), and Roby (1995)) didn't contain enough information to determine if they applied to at-risk students. Four of the papers (Campbell (1994), Greenfield (1994), Haenn (1996), Peltier (1991)) report no statistically significant effects of year-round calendars on reading, math, or other academically relevant areas. One of these (Greenfield (1994)) did not appear to involve at-risk students and the relevance of the others to at-risk children varies.
The study by Cooper and Nye (Cooper et al., 1996) was not an empirical study, but a review of several empirical studies. The authors write that their report cannot be applied to alternative school calendars. One report (Shields et al., 1996) is a literature review conducted for the British Columbia Ministry of Educa-tion. It points out that the reason that at-risk children benefit probably lies in other reforms that accompanied the year round calendar and not the change in the calendar per se.
One study (Curry et al., 1997) is a detailed report of 12 elementary schools in Austin, Texas. At these schools, 50 to 85% of the students were Hispanic. Bene-fits were reported for Hispanic students. However, a recent news report on Na-tional Public Radio's Weekend Edition (Document 26, NPR Weekend Edition, 25 Oct 1998) revealed that the data from Hispanic students had been changed by principals. There are no studies that show that year round school alone improves the performance of at-risk students.
The following are quotes taken from some of the very papers cited in ACS Fact Sheet 2 as supporting year round school.
"Analysis of a number of student outcomes (basic skills gains, ab-sences, promotion rates, number of books read, and reading levels) found no significant differences in favor of the year-round students (Campbell, 1994, p. 24).
"Results did not demonstrate significant score increase across the years in any of the content areas. Neither did the scores of a single cohort of students, tracked for two years before and then again after YRE implementation suggest improved academic per-formance across time" (Greenfield, 1994, p. 256).
Dr. Freeman, from Auburn City Schools, echoed this at the Dean Road PTA meeting on year round school, 15 Oct 1998,and at the Ogletree PTA meeting, 26 Oct 1998, when she said:
Dr. Freeman went on to explain that it is what is done during the intersessions that can sometimes improve the test scores of at-risk students.
Even this remediation remains problematic. Consider what must happen for intersessions to be effective:
1) the student must attend, 2) there must be money to fund it, 3) teachers must be prepared for it, and 4) the intersession must be long enough.
Is it reasonable to expect that students will be able to make up 9 weeks of work in 1 or 2 weeks? Will an A during intersession erase an F from the previous 9 weeks?
Especially with kindergarten and elementary students, it is difficult to establish in one or two weeks the trusting, stable relationship required for maximum learning. (Teachers at the Cary Woods (21 Oct 1998) and Ogletree (26 Oct 1998) PTA meetings added that insight). These are some of the troublesome points that must be addressed.
4.6 Teacher Burn Out
Many teachers spoke at the Board of Education meeting on 13 October 1998, and said that YRS would provide needed breaks to help prevent teacher burn out. However, one might note that high school teachers have a 90-minute plan-ning period every day. They are not with students all the time. If YRS reduced teacher burn out, teacher attendance should improve under YRS. The results of a study by Janice A. Kocek suggest that the change in teacher attendance is in-significant (Kocek, no date, p. 7 (note -- this study was only on elementary teach-ers)). Fact Sheet 1 states that some teachers and administrators love YRS and some report burn out (Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar).
A teacher at the Ogletree PTA meeting, 26 Oct 1998 pointed out that it isn't the teaching that causes burn out but the disciplining. This suggests money might be better used to address discipline problems on a daily basis; thus, freeing the teacher to teach and the class from behavior distractions.
With a shortened summer break teachers will spend a greater percentage of their vacation time working on an advanced degree or at workshops, which means more stress and less relaxation, hence more burn out. In addition some teachers could be teaching intersession so they would get a shorter break or none at all. Perhaps teachers from outside the Auburn City School system would have to be used.
5 Other Considerations
5.1 Concerns for teachers
1.7.1 Nine-month contract teachers in ACS supplement their salaries by finding em-ployment during the three summer months. Year round school reduces or eliminates this period of employment. Of interest in this area is the Summer Camps Short Fact Sheet and the Summer Camps Fact Sheet (Document 13, Summer Camps Short Fact Sheet and Document 14, Summer Camps Fact Sheet). These show that many camps are staffed by teachers and school food service personnel. To be accredited, these camps must train their personnel before camp starts, during summer break. This further limits time available for summer camps.
1.7.2 Student interns from AU would be in a difficult position since ACS could be in school while the interns are not and vice versa. In fact, the proposed Calendar D (Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar) virtually eliminates vaca-tion time at Auburn University (Auburn's largest employer) coinciding with the va-cation time of Auburn City Schools. This translates to less help for teachers from interns.
1.7.3 A big question for teachers is "Who is going to teach during the intersessions?" Teaching during intersession is a loss of vacation time. Less vacation time from teaching intersession would increase teacher burn out. Regular teachers already reported burn out after only nine weeks of school (Auburn City Schools Board of Education meeting, 6 Oct 1998). Teaching during all the year round school intersessions changes a nine-month job into a twelve month job.
The use of less qualified instructors in intersession defeats its purpose.
5.2 Budget Considerations
1.8.1 Several studies indicate that year round school costs more than the traditional calendar (see Peltier, 1991, pp. 126 & 128; Long et al., pp. 4, 5 & 7; and Educa-tional Research Service, Report #7112, 1994, p. 63). A five-percent increase for heating and cooling costs is cited in the ACS Alternative Calendar Exploration Committee Subcommittee Report on Costs (Document 21, Costs and Financial Information Received For Other Schools Systems Who Have Implemented Year-Round Calendars). The map on the next page illustrates the extra costs of year round school.
1.8.2 Auburn City Schools personnel have given the following range of estimates:
Dr. Freeman, 1 Sep 1998, and 1 Oct 1998, $45,000 per year.Dr. Martin, 15 Oct 1998, $1,700,000 per year (upper bound).
Several other intermediate figures have been cited. Dr. Martin has indicated that the $1,700.000 figure is the upper limit and includes meals and transportation for intersessions.
The $1.7 million estimate would:
* hire approximately 40 full time teachers, or* add about 80 teacher aides (one for every K -- 5 class in Auburn City Schools), or* construct 17,000 ft2 of classroom space every year (about 24 classrooms every year!).* have to be paid by about 34,000 Auburn citizens. This is ~$50/citizen or $200/family each and every year for a family of four.
The Auburn City Schools are already strapped for cash. Dr. Martin stated at sev-eral PTA meetings that the school budget was very tight this year in part because ACS put two new schools on line that didn't receive state funds for this first year. Moreover, the elementary schools had a 20% cost overrun (about $2 million).
Year round school could reduce attendance (and thus, funding) especially due to summer absenteeism of students. State funds are based on student attendance. For instance, increased absenteeism during YRS summer sessions has significantly reduced state funding in the San Diego school system. State funds are provided according to the actual number of students who attend each day. In San Diego, 10 single track year round schools (STYR) lost $371,339.20 more than the 10 matched traditional schools during the first 44 days of their scheduled school days. Attendance was low at the STYR schools due to absenteeism during the traditional summer vacation (Educational Research Service, Report #7112, 1994, pp. 59, 63 & 69). Simply put, parents will take family vacations when the parents can get time and want to do it -- summer.
The aforementioned report recommended that the STYR schools consider shift-ing to a September to September calendar or, that failing, establish procedures for the transition to a traditional calendar to reduce the ADA (average daily atten-dance) revenue losses. In another example, Oxnard School District reduced their ADA losses by 90% by changing their starting date from July to August (Educational Research Service, Report #7112, 1994, pp. 59, 63 & 64).
There is little downtime available to make necessary building repairs with a sin-gle-track YRS calendar (Peltier, 1991, p. 127). This can shorten the life of the school itself by as much as 50%.
5.3 Community reasons
The community must be behind year round school in order for it to work. Peltier says that implementing YRS is not easy and requires that administrators, teach-ers, parents and the community be involved from the beginning (Peltier (1991) p. 128). Other authors also mention the need for parental and community support (Gee (1997) p. 796; Greenfield (1994) p. 261; Haenn (1996) p. 34; and Long et al., pp. 5, 6 & 7). Like any public policy in the US, public support is needed for success. This is especially true for education where the citizens and administration interface every working day.
Auburn is not in favor of year round school. The attached petitions (about 2400 signatures) and the public response during petitioning (see Appendix), the public response at the 12 Oct Town Meeting and the responses at the PTA meetings on year round school indicate that Auburn is not in favor of year round school.
5.3.1 Camps, etc.
Camps and other similar experiences would be severely restricted by year round school.
Families that send their children to academic, religious, athletic, or summer camps will find it harder to do so, because camp schedules are arranged to cater to the 97% of the schools that have a 12 week summer. They take place in July and August when our children would be in school on YRS. Camps are not just fun and games but provide quality youth development experiences.
The American Camping Association (ACA) states, "ACA is not against year round education. It is against year round schools." (Document 14, Summer Camps Fact Sheet).
The Auburn City Schools Alternative Calendar Committee Subcommittee on Camps research shows that year round school would severely reduce Auburn City Schools students' access to camps and similarly activities.
"Camps and agencies argue that the schools can't replace the broader educational legitimacy of public and private camps, YMCA's, YWCA's, Park Departments, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Inc., and others. They further argue that the school cannot have complete authority, either in fact or in power by position, over the students' informal educational experiences" (Docu-ment 15, American Camping Association, YEAR ROUND EDUCATION, p. 4 (emphasis in original)).
Summer sports and cheerleading clinics that use college dorms can't shift to in-tersessions because dorms aren't available then (Document 13, Summer Camps Short Fact Sheet). The summer theatre camp at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is always scheduled during the first two weeks of August so that all the facilities are available for the campers to use. "If Auburn moves to year--round school, this opportunity will be lost for Auburn students. There are many other outstanding arts camps, such as Interlochen, that Auburn students attend. It is unlikely that these camps will modify their schedules to coordinate with YRS schedules, since approximately 95 percent of the nation's school system adhere to traditional calendars." (Alabama Shakespeare Assistant Director, Document 16, Auburn Bulletin, 28 Oct 1998, p. A-6).
5.3.2 Recreation department
National and regional tournaments are often scheduled during summer months. In Dothan, which is on YRS, schools excused students to play in the Dixie Youth State Tournament and the Alabama State Closed Tennis Tournament (Document 17, Impact of Extended Year on Recreation). There is no indication on the state level that these tournament schedules will be altered (Document 17, Impact of Extended Year on Recreation). Excused absences for such activities will be detrimental to the academic education of students, particularly those at-risk. If students must maintain a certain grade-point average to be excused for such activities, this will unfairly punish those who don't qualify and yet would have usually taken advantage of these developmentally important activities during the summer break.
There will be a large cost to accommodate a glut of school-age children during intersessions and the shortened summer. Auburn University college students would not be readily available during intersessions to serve as recreation pro-gram workers since they would be in school. Calendar D of the ACS proposed calendars (Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar) would virtually prohibit their working since the Auburn University vacations almost never coin-cide with the proposed ACS vacations. Calendars B and C are not much better.
The summer swim program runs continuously from June 15 to August 1. This program would also be affected by the unavailability of Auburn University stu-dents as employees. With YRS, changes in swim lesson times to coordinate with school hours would result in less recreational swim time (Document 17, Impact of Extended Year on Recreation).
5.3.3 Childcare problems
It can be difficult to find adequate childcare for the intersessions. Childcare facilities will be really loaded during these breaks and won't have college students on summer break to use for staff. Two programs contacted for the Child Care Report indicated that YRS would make it difficult to utilize students (Document 23, Extended Year Calendar Child Care Report).
Ms. Jean Spicer who works with "welfare" moms in her job pointed out that these parents can't afford childcare for the intersessions but must hold a job to qualify for food stamps. From her experience mothers, out of desperation, leave children as young as 7 or 8 home alone. Therefore many low-income children would become latchkey children during intersessions. These are often children who are at-risk students -- the very students that YRS is supposed to help.
Divorced parents who have joint custody of children often send their children to the non-custodial parent during the summer months. Unless the non-custodial parent lives close by, YRS will decrease the time that a child can spend with one of his/her parents. In the case of a dispute, parents will have to return to court to settle the question thus incurring additional expenses.
5.3.4 Disruption of family
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of an extended school year calendar is the considerable negative impact it will have on quality family time. The re-structuring of the school year takes the decision process out of the hands of parents. Informal educational experiences are no longer up to parents but unjustly influenced by the time constraints imposed by the school.
"The current long summer break not only provides for increased flexibility in summer trip and vacation planning, it also is the time of year when parents have the greatest chance of spending quality time with their children. Summer provides an extended period of time with long daylight hours during which dad or mom can get home from work and still have time to do something outdoors with their children before it gets dark. This will not be an option for most of the summer if an extended school year is put into effect. The requirements of homework and after school activities will rob parents of this important chance to spend time with their kids. Similarly, it will not be an option during the rest of the year due to the shorter daytime period and subsequent lack of evening daylight hours." (Document 18, Opelika-Auburn News, 3 Sep 1998).
With a traditional calendar, common vacations for all family members are easy to schedule and to coordinate with the extended family who are also on the traditional calendar (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.). Since 97% of schools are on a traditional calendar, most vacation places and job vacations and families are geared to traditional summer activities. With Auburn University moving to semesters in the fall of 2000, the summer vacation for Auburn employees will correspond closely to ACS's traditional calendar. YRS will put children in school while the university is on break.
With a traditional calendar, students have a significant summer employment pe-riod (a learning experience in itself!), earning money to supplement family income or for future education. Dr. Martin at the Public Forum, 12 Oct 1998, said there was no answer to this issue..Ninety-seven percent (97%) of schools in the US share our traditional calendar. Therefore, the influx of new students each fall is much better handled in a tradi-tional calendar. Transfer students won't be starting weeks behind their class-mates. If ACS started school on July 25 (Calendar D, Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar), a high school student coming from a traditional calendar school and enrolling on August 15 would be behind three weeks in his classes. He/she would also have 10 unexcused absences thus FX-ing (failing due to unexcused absences) all term classes and any year-long alternating day classes in which he/she enrolled (Auburn City Schools, Pupil Progression Plan 1998-1999, p. 8). As well as making up missed work the student would have to at least appeal to the principal to receive credit for the classes. Year round schools in the Oxnard School District saw a 75% reduction in late arrivals by changing their starting date from July to August (Educational Research Service, Report #7112, 1994, p. 59).
"Finally, the current long summer vacation provides kids with a chance to be kids. While they may be enrolled in sports or educational programs, there's still plenty of time to follow their dreams, whether they're hobbies or just simply going out to play. A shortened summer break will have a major negative impact on this important part of growing up" (Document 19, Opelika-Auburn News, ~22 Jan 1998).
5.3.5 Effect on the business community
High school students are not readily available for work during the time that col-lege students are out of town. This particularly affects seasonal businesses like construction and landscaping businesses.
There will be difficulty in scheduling vacations for staff when everyone wants time off during intersessions. Summers are manageable because vacations are spread out over three months and business is slower anyway. So not too many of the employees are away at a given time. With year round school, there will be a huge staff demand for vacations during a short period (intersessions) and the regular business load.
A reputation for good schools has drawn people to Auburn. It is a positive selling point that encourages industries to move to the area. Industries don't want to come to an area with YRS. This can lead to a decrease in business development and in housing prices.
6 Unanswered questions
ACS has made several significant changes in the past three years. The effects of these changes need to be thoroughly evaluated before making another change as radical as year round school. What is the effect of these changes?
Block scheduling at the high school reduces teacher-contact time to only 75% of the traditional calendar. Block scheduling allows large breaks between similar classes (up to 12 months!). Less contact time, and time away from subject matter are known to reduce academic performance. Is block scheduling affecting AP and ACT scores? (Many parents believe it is.)
The Auburn City Schools has been redistricted. The former middle school and junior high school have merged into two middle schools. There have been indi-cations that this arrangement needs some tuning. Is one athletic team repre-senting both middle schools the best way to go? Can classes be better scheduled to eliminate the wide variance in class size in core classes?
With the cost overruns at the new elementary schools and the needed funding to complete these schools and their facilities (for example enough books in the library), can ACS afford the cost of shifting to YRS, let alone the cost of an intersession remediation program?
Dr. Martin has indicated that another high school will be needed in Auburn in the near future. "Frequently, single-track is merely a first step in the implementation of the year-round school, and the school district can fluctuate between the two tracks, depending upon the increase or decrease in the student body" (Kneese (1996) p. 60). If a year round school calendar is adopted, is there any guarantee that the high school won't go to multi-track YRS to delay construction of a new school?
The ACS newsletter mailed to parents lists criteria for at-risk students (Document 4, Exploration of An Alternative Calendar). Two of the four factors focus primarily on kindergarten to fourth grade reading. Are there reading, writing, or other programs targeted at this age group that have a better track record and are less disruptive than YRS?
7 Suggestions for Improvements to Auburn City Schools
Open up administration/teacher communication at Auburn City Schools. There is a need for open communication between the Auburn City Schools administration and the Auburn City Schools teachers. The survey conducted in 1992 says that teachers have a lot of ideas to improve education but are also distrustful of the administration (Cherones et al., Survey of Public Opinion of Year- Around Education in the Auburn City School System, pp. 58 & 59).
This same survey indicated that parents were eager to share their concerns about the school system with someone who would listen (Cherones et al., Survey of Public Opinion of Year- Around Education in the Auburn City School System, pp. 39 & 59). Auburn parents have ideas and want to help.
Public meetings where the public is not allowed to speak shows disrespect of the parents and fosters distrust. Meetings where no minutes are taken border on being secret. Meetings where public input is sought but clearly not recorded is condescending. Meetings where the public input is sought on the surface, but then cut off or ignored (13 Oct 1998 Board of Education meeting; Document 25, Auburn Bulletin, 7 Nov 1998) alienates the very people whose help Auburn City Schools needs.
When input is sought (as it should be more often), that input must be recorded and considered.
Programs with proven benefits like Title 1 should be expanded.
An article in the Review of Educational Research (66) maintains that:
* higher per pupil expenditures (that is better teacher pay), * better teacher preparation (education, experience, ability), and * smaller schools and classes
produce higher student achievement regardless of income or race (Greenwald et al., 1996).
What is ACS doing to improve these three factors that demonstrate a strong im-pact on achievement? What plans are in effect to improve these factors? Auburn City Schools must spend its precious resources on the programs with the strongest predictors of producing student achievement.
8 Conclusions
The following points have been made about year round school:
* Year round school does not increase academic achievement -- of gifted, av-erage, or at-risk students.
* Community support is necessary for the success of year round school. That support does not exist in the Auburn community.
* A traditional calendar provides a greater continuity of learning. Year round school has more breaks and longer breaks.
* Year round school costs more, not only monetarily but in lost opportunity costs because it lessens the window of opportunity for participation in sum-mer employment, tournaments, camps, and other summer programs. All of these are educational opportunities.
* Year round school is disruptive to families - their vacations, childcare ar-rangements, custody arrangements, and family time.
* Auburn City Schools needs to evaluate the recent large changes made in the schools, including:
Block scheduling at the high school,Creation of two middle schools,Addition of two elementary schools and subsequent loss of the acceler-ated math program for fifth graders.
For the above reasons, Auburn City Schools should keep their traditional calendar.
9 References
Auburn City Schools. Pupil Progression Plan and Statement of Responsibilities for School Personnel, Parents, and Students 1998 -- 1999
Campbell, Wallace. 1994. Year-Round Schooling for Academically At-Risk Stu-dents: Outcomes and Perceptions of Participants in an Elementary Program. ERS Spectrum. Summer:20-24.
Cherones, Linda et al. 1992. Survey of Public Opinion of Year-Round Education if the Auburn City School System. 4 December 1992.
Cooper, H. et al. 1996. The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores: A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review. Review of Education Research. Fall. 66:3:227-268.
Curry, Janice; Washington, Wanda; Zyskowski, Gloria. (1997? ) Year-round schools evaluation, 1996-1997. Executive summary.
ERS Report # 7112. Report on Single-track Year-round Education in SanDiego Unified School District. (1994).
Frazier, Julie A. and Morrison, Frederick J. 1998. The Influence of Extended--Year Schooling on Growth of Achievement and Perceived Competence in Early Elemen-tary School. Child Development. April 1998. Vol. 69: No. 2:495-517.
Gee, William D. 1997. The Copernican Plan and Year-Round Education. Phi Delta Kappan: June 1997:793-796.
Greenfield, Teresa. 1994. Year-Round Education: A Case for Change. The Educa-tional Forum. Vol. 58:Spring:252-262.
Greenwald, R., Hedges, L. V., & Laine, R. D. 1996. Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement. Review of Educational Research: 66:361-396.
Haenn, Joseph. 1996. Evaluating the Promise of Single-Track Year-Round Schools. ERS Spectrum. Fall:27-35.
Kneese, Carolyn Calvin. 1996. Review of Research on Student Learning in Year--Round Education. Journal of Research and Development in Education. Vol. 29:No 2:Winter:60-72.
Kneese, Carolyn and Knight, Stephanie. 1995. Investigating the Effects of Single-Track Year Round Education On Achievement of At-Risk Students. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 18-22, San Francisco, CA.
Kocek, Janice. The Effect of Year Round School On Teacher Attendance.
Long, Larry and Javidi, Manoocher. Executive Summary
Peltier, G. L. 1991. Year-round education: The controversy and research evidence. NASSP Bulletin. 75:120-129.
Roby, D. E. 1995. Comparison of a Year-round School and a Traditional School: Reading and Mathematics Achievement. ERS Spectrum. Winter:1995:13:7-10
Shields, C. H. and LaRocque, L. J. (1996) Literature review on year-round schooling (with an annotated bibliography). Report done for the British Columbia Ministry of Education.
10 Bibliography
Brekke, Norman R., 1992. Year Round Schools: An Efficient and Effective Use of Resources. School Business Affairs. May:26-37.
Cooper, H. et al. 1996. The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores: A Narrative and meta-Analytic Review. Review of Education Research. Fall. 66:3:227-268.
Evans, George, P. 1997. Modified Calendar Program Evaluation. Dallas County School System.
Fulton County Board of Education, 1992. College Park Elementary School Year-Round School Evaluation. The Office of Planing Research and Development, September.
Greenfield, Teresa. 1994. Year-Round Education: A Case for Change. The Educational Forum. Vol 58:Spring:252-262.
Hazelton, Jared. 1995. Year Round Schools: A Matter of Time? Cost -Saving Opportunities and Pitfalls. School Business Affairs. November:15-21.
Kneese, Carolyn and Knight, Stephanie. 1995. Investigating the Effects of Sin-gle-Track Year Round Education On Achievement of At-Risk Students. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 18-22, San Francisco, CA.
Naylor, Charlie. 1995. Cost Effectiveness of Year-Round Schooling: An Anno-tated Bibliography and Synthesis of Research. BCTF Research and Technology Division. May. Section XII. 95-EI-02.
Naylor, Charlie. 1995. Do Year-Round Schools Improve Student Learning? An annotated bibliography and synthesis of research. BCTF Research and Tech-nology Division. May. Section XII. 95-EI-03.
Naylor, Charlie. 1995. Year-Round Education: Is it Worth the Hassle? BCTF Perspective. Research Report. Section XII. 96-EI-05.
Pawless, George. 1996. Year-Round Education: Florida Principals' Perspective. ERS Spectrum. Summer:42-47.
Raspberry, Quinn. 1992. Year Round Schools May Not Be the Answer. Spring-field, VA:ERIC Document Retrieval Service. ED 353 658.
Venable, Bernice. A School For All Seasons.
Winters, Walter. 1995. A Review of Recent Studies Relating to the Achievement of Students Enrolled in Year-Round Education Programs. NAYRE. White Paper. September.
11 Appendices
11.1 Community Comments from Petitioning, 3 Nov 199811.2 Experience Of Other School Systems With Year Round School.11.3 Other Sources of Information11.4 Full Text of Documents 11.5 Full Text of Papers
11.1 Community Comments from Petitioning, 3 Nov 1998
Community Comments from Petitioning, 3 Nov 1998
Below are comments from voters at Auburn City Hall obtained while collecting stop year round school signatures 3 Nov 1998.
We should be allowed to vote on YRS.
I saw Dr. Martin on Ch. 66 Saturday morning. I definitely want to sign a petition against YRS.
ACS wants to implement too many changes. They still need to work out block schedul-ing before I'll support YRS.
I still don't understand why they want YRS after looking at their fact sheet.
I think they can spend our money in a better way.
I've had to take summer school in the past. I feel sorry for those kids that will have to attend the intercessions.
I teach in the County schools. I don't support Year Round Schools.
I'm on City Council so I can't sign the petition.
They need to lower classroom sizes. They don't need to change the calendar.
Who came up with this kooky idea?
Why don't they hire extra teachers or tutors?
What about those kids with parents that share custody? My parent's were divorced when I was in elementary school & YRS would have had a negative effect on my time with my dad.
They looked at changing the calendar in '92 & I'm still against it!
Why don't we hear more from the teachers? I know, they are afraid to speak out!
From signers at Frank Brown Rec. Center, 3 Nov 1998:
I'm not sure how I feel about YRS, but I hate block scheduling and YRS seems to be an extension of that!
I want my kids to have a long summer break to unwind.
Older woman: I'll sign that! Then to her husband: You want to sign it, too, don't you! (not a question). Our grandkids are moving here and this (YRS) is not good.
One person was of the impression that the calendar would be changed to have X-mas break end in mid- to late January, thereby shortening the time to spring break. After it was explained that the calendar has not been decided upon and that it could possibly shift from year to year, the individual signed. He was under the impression that a calendar had been set.
We use our summer for family unwinding time. I don't need the school to take that away from us.
I don't have kids now but I might in a few years.
At Samford Middle School, signers said (3 Nov 1998):
From a retired teacher: This is the biggest bunch of nonsense.
I came from (a northeastern state) where they were trying to implement YRS. It was a bad idea there, and it's no better here.
Aaahh (hesitating). I'm a teacher. I'd better not sign.
11.2 Experience Of Other School Systems With Year Round School
Contact reference for this information is given below.
11.3 Other Sources of Information
11.4 Full Text of Documents
Contact David Elton at elton@eng.auburn.edu for permission to reproduce this document and for further information on sections 11.2, 11.3, and 11.4.
GET INVOLVED in the STOP YEAR-ROUND SCHOOL CITIZENS' GROUP
300 N. Dean Rd. P.O. Box 5172Auburn, AL 36830-5045 Tel: (334) 821-2266