Balanced School Year Calendar

[RF536]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?
2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.
3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

 

[sam_gordon]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?
2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.
3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

I wish I can help you. But all I can do is suggest questions...

1) When exactly are the breaks? That would help you decide #3
Here's a chart I found, I don't know how accurate it is...

It looks like a 2 week spring break (instead of one), and a two week fall break. I also wonder how that would affect fall/spring sport athletes.
When is the end of the year? After the 45 days after Spring break?

 

[RF536]

thank you, that is part of the problem. The schools aren't saying what type of calendar they are going to use. So we don't know if the schools will have a 30 day summer break, or a 45 day summer break.

The districts are claiming it will help with the loss of learning that takes place over the summer, but I haven't been able to find anything that supports this. I can find opinions both ways, but no hard facts. The one public school in our county that has this schedule, has actually gone down in their standing in the state and their standardized test scores have gone down as well.

With regards to sports, they are saying it will not impact sports. In this area, football teams start practicing and have games before school starts.

While I am not completely opposed to the change, I also don't want to see the change made if there is no real benefit to it either. I am wondering if this is just a new way (at least to this area) way to fix a broken system. I can see a lot of issues with the change, but not a lot of pros for the change.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

I wish I can help you. But all I can do is suggest questions...

1) When exactly are the breaks? That would help you decide #3
Here's a chart I found, I don't know how accurate it is...

It looks like a 2 week spring break (instead of one), and a two week fall break. I also wonder how that would affect fall/spring sport athletes.
When is the end of the year? After the 45 days after Spring break?

Wouldn't a 15-day "off" period be 3 weeks? Looks to me like 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off, 6 weeks on, 1 week off (Thanksgiving), 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off (Christmas), 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off (Easter), 9 weeks on, 6 weeks off (Summer). Am I missing something?

 

[PollyannaMom]

From the graph, I think I kind of like the idea!

But I can't help much with details, as my schools are all on traditional calendars.

 

[cvjw]

We have a modified balanced calendar and we love it. Our district has a shorter summer - kids start to school at the first of August. They then get a week off for Fall break in September, a week off at Thanksgiving, two weeks off at Christmas, a week off in February for winter break, a week off in April for spring break and then out of school around the 20th of May.

Lots of great vacation times during the breaks, and the part my kids loved the best was that they were always a few weeks away from a week off school. This especially helped my older son who went to a magnet school and took a full load of Magnet, honors and AP classes. A week off from his schedule always renewed his spirit.

To your question about all schools in the area having the same schedule - our county has this schedule. The counties around us have schedules that are determined by their school boards. Some have traditional school schedules and some have this modified balanced calendar.

 

[mom2grace]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?
2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.
3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

I'm in Indiana, and we do 'balanced calendar'. We start early August, around the 4th, have a 1 week fall break in October, the whole week of Thanksgiving off, the typical 14-17 days at Christmas (this is the same as the past), and a 1 week spring break. We finish the Friday of Memorial Day. So our summer break is June & July.

Every district in the state makes their own schedule & they vary WIDELY. Even districts in the same county are different. Some have 2 week breaks.

What my school has seen is a significant drop in students & staff taking off the rest of what had been our traditional 2-3 day breaks. I don't know about test scores. If you follow Indiana at all, we are a mess when it comes to testing.

I like the 1 week breaks and would only like the 2 weeks if I were going to travel to Europe!! I feel like 1 week is doable with child care but 2 weeks isn't. I would say in the Indianapolis area, more schools have 2 week breaks than 1 week breaks.

When this change came, many school districts promised enrichment and remediation to be available during the breaks & this has not happened.

Sports are not impacted at all, except you can't leave for Fall Break if you have a HS varsity athlete. Not an issue for me yet, don't know if it every will be.

We start so early in August because 1st semester needs to finish before Christmas break so that seniors can graduate. I don't know how the Labor Day rule would apply. I would MUCH prefer to do a Labor Day to end of June schedule since as you know early June can be downright COLD!

I don't really know about summer jobs, but I am sure the workplace has adjusted since most schools are using this type of schedule.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

We live in Raleigh, NC which has mix of school schedules. Elementary and middle schools that run on traditional or year round calendar. In general, high schools run on a traditional calendar. There are also a few schools that run on a modified calendar. My kids go to a year round school, that are nine weeks one, three weeks off. Their breaks might be longer if the back up to a holiday break. For example, my kids just had 5 weeks off over December and January. Most of the year round schools here are multi-track with 4 tracks, which means one group is always tracked out. A few schools are single track though. The modified calendar schools have June and July off, go back to school in August and then have 2 week breaks in October and April. Our kids have always been in a year round school and they really like it. They don't have to spend the first week or two of school reviewing what they did last year and after 9 weeks of school, they're ready for a break.

 

[barkley]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

we're in a somewhat similar situation-our district is the rural one, and we have 3 other districts that boarder it. one is even more rural than ours, another is much larger and has more of the traditional subdivision dwelling kiddos in it, the 3rd is the biggest and includes a mix of subdivision and urban (with a small population of rural).

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?

no. all are on different schedules. ours starts midweek prior to labor day while the others tend to start the day after. holiday breaks are almost the same-one might start a day earlier than another or give a minimum day while another does not. the largest district gets out a week later than the rest of us, but I think that's because they build in 5 more snow days than anyone else. I don't understand it but-if they don't end up using their snow days (like this year), rather than shortening the school year that district ends up with 3 or 4 extra 3 day weekends between January and March.

2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.

since we've got 3 universities here the high school kids have stiff competition for jobs, so they're lucky to find one. we also have some strict restrictions on minor employment. we do get a good chunk that work under the table agriculture.

3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

our school is on a traditional schedule so it's not an issue for us, but a good friend and her dh work for districts in California that have been balanced for YEARS and she's shared the frustrations she's had when her kids were in it. the biggest issues for her are (1) weather-she lives in a HOT area, and despite school improvements to air conditioning it's miserable attending in late july and early august, and (2) having kids (when her kids were attending) at 2 different points in their education. in her district the balanced calendar is only used for elementary and middle school because the district learned from the crashing failures of doing it with the high school a couple of years initially (colleges and scholarship applications need things like gpa's and final grades by cut off dates that didn't mesh with their balanced calendar). so for my friend-she and her dh were working on the balanced administrative schedule (which had them back to work after only a 21 day 'summer vacation', while her younger son was on the academic balanced, and older son was on the traditional). they usually ended up with 21 days off together in the summer, 2 weeks at Christmas, and 1 week in the spring.

 

[monsterkitty]

I teach in a very poor district. Two of our elementary schools tried the balanced calendar for 6 years - basically it followed the kindergartners through 5th grade to see what impact it would have on test score and learning retention. They did offer remediation and enrichment classes during the breaks but for a fee. What they found was:

• Parents did not like the balanced calendar as it was difficult to find childcare during those breaks. Day cares hire extra staff for the summer breaks to manage more kids during that time, but didn't during the 3 week breaks making it difficult to allow for the extra kids.
• Parents, even with scholarship money, did not sign their children up for the classes during the breaks because they couldn't get them to the school, they couldn't afford the classes ($25/week), and a host of other reasons. The district stopped offering the classes after the second year because they couldn't afford to pay teachers the extra money.
• Test scores did not go up. In fact, in some cases they declined
• parents pulled their students out of the school schools and put them into other district schools that were on a traditional schedule
• Teachers who worked at these schools did so by choice and they had the buy-in. They wanted it to work but it didn't.

In some areas it may work, but in our case it didn't. The parents said it was to big of a burden on them with child care during those off weeks. Other areas it may work if the community has the support system.

As a side note, in one of my Masters classes we compared the test scores of traditional school calendars vs. non-traditional. There really was not that big of a statistical difference to say that a modified schedule increased learning and test scores. The only strategy that studies have shown to increase test scores and learning was attendance. Increase attendance and learning improves as does test scores. Not calendars, school-day length, uniforms, or unicorns. Just plain old attendance.

 

[mandy200587]

We switched to balanced during high school, we started end of July and finished before Memorial Day. We had two week fall break, two week winter break, two week spring break. The two week spring break now is written in with the cushion if there aren't enough snow days they are able to tap into that. Personally I enjoyed it and found it easier with midterms and finals because it was always timed around our breaks. I know they also try and time part of the breaks with the colleges in the area too.

As far as jobs I know many have the same seasonal jobs and were worked around. They had most of June and July to work because of the timing of the breaks.

Vacations, I found we were able to go more places if we wanted to because we weren't restricted to just one time of year we could go. We had October to go, December to go or March. It gave us a bit more freedom at least for my family.

 

[NHdisneylover]

We live in Germany where a balanced calendar is the norm. Different states follow different patterns. Everyone has Christmas off and two weeks of overlap in summer (first two weeks of August) but otherwise things shift fro state to state. Our area, and Bavaria are on the same schedule, which is heavily driven by the Catholic holidays

We have the latest summer break with DS starting back to school between 10-15 September depending on the year.
There is a 2 week fall break which always includes Nov 1
2-3 weeks for Christmas, depending on which days of the week the holidays themselves fall on. They never go back before Epiphany
The week of Ash Wednesday
The weeks before and after Easter
The 2 weeks around Whit Sunday (40 days after Easter)
and then a 6 week summer break starts the first week in August.


I like that we get a few times to travel during the year when it is low season for most of the world (end of our summer break, fall break, Ash Wednesday week . . .), that there is basically never more than 6 weeks without a break, and DS does seem to retain more that way.

I don't like that there is virtually no overlap between DS's schedule and his cousins in Colorado, making it hard to visit.

I think it would be hard if we needed childcare and the whole regions did not do this (here, the whole region does, so plenty of camps, etc run in breaks).

High school students do not work in Germany (much to DS's chagrin) so this is a non issue.

 

[Colleen27]

If you google it you'll find a lot of pros of a balanced calendar, almost all of them academic. The issue has come up in my area on several occasions and I wish it would get more serious consideration, but dislike of change is a powerful thing.

As far as the specific questions you have, that will depend on your district's implementation. One plan proposed here would have the whole district on the same calendar, so the kids would still all have the same breaks, but another suggested a balanced calendar for elem schools while the middle and high schools remained on a traditional schedule so there would have been more variation. Local employers that hire teens would likely adapt, though it would be harder to get work outside of the district (ie at summer camps that cater to the traditional schedule). And as far as travel goes, that would depend on the family's habit. I'd love a balanced calendar because it would mean more breaks during DH's slow season at work, but other families oppose the idea because their travel habits are very tied to going in the summer when weather is good (although the longest break on most balanced calendars is still summer).

 

[NCRedding]

When our DD was in elementary school, we had the choice to enroll her in "year round" school, which looks very much like the balanced school. She started school in mid July, had a few days break when the traditional students returned in mid-August. In late September-early October, then around Christmas and again around Easter, she had three weeks off. School ended the same time that it did for the traditional calendar so her summer was about 6 weeks long.

We LOVED the schedule for the time she was on it. She was not so bored in the summer. She started school ready to learn, and without the normal loss of knowledge over the summer. Her teachers all commented that they were able to get through the required curriuculm in about 3/4 of the school year. It worked for us because the school system offered available child care for after school and for the weeks off, for a fee. They also provided at least one week of enrichment during the breaks (focus on art, focus on history, science, etc). We also loved having an opportunity to go on vacation during September rather than the heat of summer (perfect for our disney trips). The system only offered year round through 8th grade though. The high school was on a traditional calendar. The variables though: we only had one child, so we didn't have to worry about competing schedules among our kids.

Ultimately, the year round program was terminated in our system because it became a divide between the year round teachers and the traditional teachers. The bulk of the students in year round were the "good students" which left a larger percentage of "difficult" students in the traditional calendar. I felt fortunate we were able to do the program through DD's 3rd grade, but we would have continued it for as long as they offered it.

 

[pryncess527]

If you google it you'll find a lot of pros of a balanced calendar, almost all of them academic. The issue has come up in my area on several occasions and I wish it would get more serious consideration, but dislike of change is a powerful thing.

This was my experience as well. When I took a graduate education class that examined this topic, almost every "pro" we came up with was academic. Almost every "con" we came up with was, quite frankly, based on things that I don't think should drive our decision making about education, like hotel industry profits or how Six Flags feels about it. They seemed to be driving the debate in the no direction, almost single handedly every where it was tried. I found it quite disturbing how many governments openly ceded to them on the issue -- as seems to be evidenced by the fact that your state has a law about school start date to protect the tourism industry. (and I'm not picking on your state, it is by no means alone).

When areas do try it, they almost always do it halfway, which is inevitably going to create its own set of problems, then used as the justification to drop the year-round.
I just found it disturbing how often the conversation seems to be driven by everything BUT what is best for learning.

 

[Prose]

I'm in Indiana also, and we've been on the balanced calendar for a few years now - start end of July, two weeks off for Fall, Winter and Spring breaks, and end around Memorial Day. We like it academically for a couple of reasons. First, the breaks are truly breaks. Midterms and finals come before the breaks, and teachers generally don't assign any major work to be done over vacation. Second, the shorter summer helps kids get back into the swing of a new school year faster, and that boredom that hits at the end of a long summer break is prevented.

From a personal standpoint, we like it because it allows more flexibility in taking vacations. We aren't stuck to just a one week, Saturday-to-Saturday schedule - we have more days to work with and can find lower airfares traveling midweek. Also, until DD got involved in marching band, we were able to take a vacation in October when rates tend to be lower. Now our Fall break is taken up by competitions and practice, but we'll adjust.

 

[DIS_MERI]

Also in Indiana, and where I am we could have our kids easily attend any of 6 school districts, with kids from a couple of other districts attending our church. Our 3 high schoolers attend the same school, while our middle schooler and elementary student are in a different district (neither of which is the one that live in/could ride the bus from home to school). One area district is on a "year round" schedule which seems pretty close to the balanced schedule. The one the high schoolers are in is expanding their fall break from 2 days to a week, adding a 3rd day at Thanksgiving, and making Spring break 2 weeks (but the 2nd week is extra snow days because those have really messed up the schedule the last 2 years). The younger 2 also have a week for fall break, but it is the week *after* the high schoolers, and their Spring break is the 2nd week of the high schoolers break. And, of course, our oldest will start college next year, so we will get a 3rd schedule to work around. I may take the kids to Disney in the fall; if we do it will be during the high schoolers fall break (because it is easier for the littler ones to miss more school) and DD18 will just have to miss out unless her school has a break too

 

[daughtersrus]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?
2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.
3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

I'm in the suburbs of Chicago. Each school district determines their own calendar, not the county. The district we live in is "unified". Meaning one district for all age students so the calendar is the same. However, there are many districts that have one district for elementary-middle school and a different one for high school. This is a pain for many that have children in elementary or middle school and as well as high school. Spring breaks are rarely the same. Some gets mid year days off like Columbus Day and the other may not have the day off.

Most go back sometime around the third week of August. Are off from Christmas until the first Monday in January. Some take spring break at Easter and others have it the third week in March. We are generally off Wednesday-Friday Thanksgiving week.

Our first semester ends before Christmas break so HS take their finals before break and not a week after being off for 2 weeks. Depending on the number of snow/cold days, we get out the last week of May. This year it will be later becaue they need to make up 4 days that we have been off so far this winter.

 

[Turn the Page]

The county our district is in is looking at switching to a balanced calendar for schools. I am looking for input from people who have kids on this schedule or who attended on this schedule. What are the Pros and Cons as you see them. Below is some basic information and my questions/concerns.

We live in Michigan and the county we are in has several student's that qualify for free or reduced lunches. Our school district is more rural and right on the border of this county and a more affluent one, so we do not have the high poverty rate that most of the other schools in our county has. There is a law in Michigan that a school can not start prior to Labor Day, unless they have a waiver. The reason for this is because of the high tourist industry in Michigan.

1. Do all the schools in your area follow the same calendar, so that all schools have breaks at the same time?
2. Where to high school students work? Currently a lot of our high school students take summer jobs in construction, landscaping or summer camps or other seasonal type jobs.
3. How does this schedule impact your family vacations? For my family we camp, so unless we travel a great distance, camping is really only and option from late spring until early fall.

I'm in Michigan too and our school has a traditional schedule. I think all the schools in the region do though there may be one that does a more balanced schedule that I just don't know about.

To answer your questions all the schools in the area are on roughly the same calendar. As you pointed out, we can't start until after Labor Day so they all start at the same time, give or take a day or two, and school breaks are all at about the same time. Although, sometimes a school district will have two weeks for spring break instead of one or something like that and then they would go an extra week in the spring before summer break. Our schools are generally out by the second week in June.

This is a prime tourist area in the state so the high school kids work everywhere in the summer. Hotels, restaurants, retail stores, tourist attractions, etc. You name it, the high school kids are working. I don't know what would happen to the local business atmosphere if our local schools switched to a more balanced schedule. Heck, having the high school band members leave for one week in the summer for band camp puts local businesses in a bind sometimes. The businesses need the high school kids to work. If the kids couldn't work the minimum wage jobs because they are in school I'm honestly not sure where they would find workers. I doubt you would find too many adults willing to do unskilled labor like that for minimum wage.

 

[pooh4evr]

Our District elementary schools were on a cycle school year for 40 years. Sadly 3 years ago they began switching to a regular 9 month 3 month schedule. They began the cycles because the area's population was exploding and they couldn't build schools fast enough, so each school had 4 cycles, with 3 in session yr round. Anyway as a kid it was great- and as a parent I liked it even more. We had a nine week on 3 week off schedule. So just when you needed a break you got one. This was just elementary though, the middle and high schools have always been on the traditional calendar. So, now that we have 2 in middle and 1 in elem, they would have been on different schedules had the district kept the yr round system. When they were little vacationing was super! We went to WDW twice in mid December before the crowds hit and it was perfect! Now we are stuck with the traditional vacation times (boo). Overall it does help with retention of info as the kids don't spend as much time reviewing stuff from the previous year, everyone gets regular breaks so you don't get burnt out, the middle and high schools also get 1 week in fall and 1 week in spring off which overlaps witht he elementary breaks too so all the kids are out at the same time. I really like it and miss it.