Our elementary schools have mostly been on the year-round schedule for many years. We love it. We have the 4 track system that others have described. Each track is on 9 weeks, then off 3. In addition, there are 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks over Christmas that everyone is off at the same time. I love that my kids don't forget so much on their breaks, because their breaks are only 3 or 5 weeks, not 10. We love having time off when most are in school to go on vacation. WDW is cooler, cheaper and less crowded in October/November than in July! We love the long winter break because we love to ski. Teachers follow the same schedule their students do, but admininstrators needs to work year-round.
Most of the elementary schools in our area offer off-track child care, usually in a mobile classroom on the school grounds. Since there is always one track off, they have a steady flow of students coming to child care year-round. Some of the private child care centers in the area offer the same thing. They have one classroom for the school aged kids, and the kids that come rotate throughout the year.
What we don't like: Kids usually stay on the same track the whole time they're in that school, so they get to know the other kids in their class really, really well, but they hardly get to know the kids in the other three classes, unless they have other activities with them. While the kids love being with their best buddies each year, they also might get stuck with the same bully year in and year out, and of course, they may never get to meet the person who might have been an even better buddy.
Our track is one of the two where breaks coincide with the 2 all-school breaks, so my kids have four breaks, 2 3-week and 2 5-week, and are always in school for 9 weeks straight. Some think the other two tracks get too choppy, with six breaks, 4 3-weeks and 2 2-weeks. They might be off 3 weeks, back on 3 weeks, back off again 2 weeks. Some families like it, some don't. Personally, I don't think I'd like that schedule, either.
Middle and high schools have traditional schedules, so when you have kids in both, families are on different schedules.
As someone mentioned, our district implemented the schedule to save money. Each building can hold more students since one quarter of them are always off, so less schools had to be built. Yes, there are more costs associated with a/c in the building in the summer, bussing year-round (somewhat aleviated by the fact that you are always bussing just 3/4 of the kids, so less buses are needed on any given day) and administrator's salaries, but those add up to much less than the cost of building a whole new school. Of course, now we've hit the point where our district has
so little money they're moving many schools to the traditional schedule, laying off teachers and overcrowding the classrooms.
My BIL taught in a year round district and preferred the schedule to the traditional schedule he grew up with. The big question for me is how do these school districts that go year roound compare to those that don't? Are they ranked better?
Our district does very well, but I wouldn't claim that the calendar is the reason. I do believe kids retain more over the short breaks, but there are so many other variables, I would doubt it really makes that big a difference.
What about whether related days off, here in the northeast that could totally disrupt the track schedule.
There are always a certain number of days that the kids can miss before needing to make them up, and so far, we haven't reached that point, since my kids have been in school. The whole school is closed for 2 weeks in the summer, so I guess they'd make up the time during those days if need be.
