Year-round schooling - an alternative to the traditional 9 months on/3 months off calendar - often gets a bad rap, mostly due to a reactionary defense of our beloved summer. But it’s hard to deny the benefits, especially when we remember that many of us were twiddling our thumbs by the end of the first month of summer, anyways. Like their traditional counterparts, year-round schools are in session for a total of 180 days. However, they have shorter instructional periods and shorter breaks; the most common model being the 60/20 (60 days of instruction, 20 days of vacation, repeated). The second most common is the 45/15 model. The primary advantage of this calendar is that it improves learning retention since students don’t have long gaps in instruction. This is especially important for low-income students who don’t have access to tutors, as well students with learning disabilities or who don’t speak the school’s language as their primary language, as research shows that they are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to the “summer slide” (the loss of information over summer break). Some studies show that differences in students summer learning experiences in elementary school impact whether they’re likely to obtain a high school diploma or college degree. If students were in school year round, these disparities would be significantly lower. Additionally, under this model, teachers don’t have to spend the first month of school reviewing material from the last school year (which 2/3 of traditional teachers said they did), and the remedial education offered in the shorter breaks is more helpful than the traditional summer school since students do not have to wait until after their classes are over to get caught up. For highschoolers, this system might not work as well, since many teenagers need to work summer jobs and some want to participate in internships. By this age, at least some of the summer slide can be avoided since older students have a greater ability to learn independently. But for students in K-8, and especially those already at a learning disadvantage, year-round school ensures fair education. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/yr/guide.asp https://www.edweek.org/education/after-summer-teachers-spend-a-month-reteaching-students/2013/06 https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/summerslide