Sixty-six elementary schools want K-3 class size waivers

A "huge brain drain"???

Wow, someone must have had an unpleasant childhood.  I loved every day of my summers out from school.  Some of the most fun, exciting times and adventures I ever had in life!

If you are unwilling to accept Bob's arguments, perhaps you will listen to those that tried it. YR has been tried and rejected at HUNDREDS of districts across the nation. Mandatory year round DOES NOT WORK. A small sample of those that abandoned YR:

JEFFERSON COUNTY - Schools in Jefferson County, Colorado abandoned the year-round calendar in 1989 after 13 years of year-round operation in approximately 50 district schools. Despite community protests, half of the district's schools went year-round beginning in 1974 to relieve overcrowding. The district reports no educational improvement or increased test scores. In fact, the decline in test scores in one high school led to decision to return to the traditional calendar. The community passed a $93 million school construction bond six years ago to get rid of year-round school. When the year-round issue threatened again in 1992, the community soundly defeated it, based on past experience. (Jefferson County School District information, 1991).

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY - After operating year-round schools for nine years, Prince William County, Virginia returned to a traditional calendar, basing their decision on little academic improvement, few cost benefits and parent reaction. According to Dr. Mary Weybright, supervisor of programs and planning, "There were not enough advantages to outweigh the disadvantages.

HOUSTON - Houston abandoned its first experiment with year-round schools after eight years, concluding the program was extremely expensive, it failed to relieve overcrowding and student achievement did not increase. School officials planned to save $6.9 million by eliminating funding necessary for the program.

ROMEOVILLE - In 1972, Romeoville, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, implemented a multi-track program in 16 schools to relieve overcrowding. According to John Lukancic, assistant superintendent of Valley View schools, they abandoned the schedule after eight years because of high operational costs of air conditioning and maintenance, difficulty in filling year-round administrative positions, and scheduling problems at the high school level.

ESCAMBIA - A district wide YRS proposal made in April 1999 for 70 schools was shelved a year later because of high costs incurred at the 10 YR experimental schools. It cost about $38,000 more per school to operate and the district will save $380,000 a year by switching back to a traditional calendar. School Board Chairman John DeWitt, a strong supporter of the year-round calendar, conceded the savings was too great to continue on a year-round schedule.

VALLEY VIEW - Began YR in 1970 but all 15 schools dropped it by 1980.This was the first community to try YR district wide. Higher utility costs were among the factors cited. School administrators found no academic advantage to the calendar, said Emmie Dunn, administrative assistant to the superintendent. "As one of our administrators said when the schedule ended, "After 10 years of year-round school, you're just plain tired,'" Dunn said.

AVON - Avon School Board cited the high costs of switching to a multi-track, 12-month school year in rejecting the idea as an answer to overcrowding. Increased costs cited included utilities, equipment repair and replacement, Janitorial care, bus maintenance and transportation. A representative of Indiana State University Services presented figures showing a 33 percent increase in operating expenses, based on data from year-round school districts in Texas and California. He also cited the YRS detriments to families, to education climate and extracurricular activities. The findings were based on two studies, one mandated by the Legislature in July 1995.

NYE COUNTY - The Nye County School District voted unanimously to end a three-year year-round calendar experiment after finding the no academic advantage to the schedule and added costs of $740,000 per year. All the data is in, and it's not educationally beneficial, School Board member Peggy Smith said.

ALBUQUERQUE - The number of YR calendar schools dwindled from 26 to 8 since the school board voted in 1994 to rescind mandated year-round schools. Individual schools can vote to remain on the YR calendar. Among those that voted to return to a traditional school year was Emerson Elementary, one of the model year-round school "success" stories featured in a government study, "Prisoners of Time," that served as a catalyst for school calendar experiments. A school board member said YRS "costs us fortunes" to operate and "academically, these schools were stalemating."

ROWAN-SALISBURY COUNTY - The school board began YR in two school in 1992, eventually dropping it in all schools. It dropped it at the middle school after two years, citing the doubled administrative workload, extra costs in transportation, cafeteria and energy, failure to make a difference in test scores, and the "us-and-them" morale problems created by offering dual calendars in the middle school.

RUTHERFORD COUNTY - A proposal for district wide year-round school was defeated in March 2001 after loud objections from parents. Dual calendars were approved for just two schools.A middle school in Murfreesboro and an elementary in Smyrna also pulled the plug on its year-round pilot schools in the 2002-03 school year, higher costs and parent opposition cited as the reasons.

SALEM-KEIZER - Began YR in 1993, dropped one school, then at the end of the 2000-01 school year dropped YR in four of the remaining seven schools for the new school year and made plans to eliminate YR in the remaining three schools in 2002. No definitive studies were made on the academic impact, though the district's special projects coordinator said the results have been mixed. Among the YRS-related reasons for abandoning the eight-year experiment: day care problems created for parents, attendance declines, scheduling difficulties for in-service training for teachers and learning distractions created by hot weather.

FORT WORTH INDEPENDENT - Tried YR in the 1970s then dropped it. Revived YR in 1992, then dropped 22 schools, including 8 middle schools. By 2000, 11 YR schools remained, then another seven were dropped by the 2001 school year, leaving 4 remaining YR schools. School officials reported no academic gains and declines in attendance at middle schools and high schools on a traditional calendar as a result of older siblings being taken out of school to baby-sit younger siblings during the year-round calendar frequent breaks.

When the bond was passed in 2006, it was with a projection of 26,000 new students by the 90/10 school year.  The actual increase was 14,000.  Where did THAT money go?

You also need to understand that a big chunk of our school budget comes from the state, and that is where the draconian cuts took place.  People should be asking their state legislature why we are still building piers for Marc Basnight, why the "Education Lottery" is now just the plain old lottery, and why taxes are going up but we still cannot invest what is needed to give these kids a proper education.

As to MYR's making better use of teachers and school funding, poppycock.

You would've been voted out with that clueless position!

That's wrong on just so many levels.  Where to start, where to start...

(1)  The money purportedly saved by year-round conversion comes, in theory, from not building schools.  Those schools would be paid for out of a capital budget from bonds.  Teacher salaries, in contrast, come from tax money.

(2)  Year-round schools only save money in theory, not in practice.  The year-round conversions a few years ago netted fewer than 2 additional seats per school.  Yet, those schools now all need year-round bus service, year-round cooling and maintenance and other support services on a year-round basis.  Those services cost something.

(3)  High schools, especially, are very difficult to convert to year-round because of electives and activities.  For example, a year-round high school that previously had a single French I class now needs FOUR French I classes to accommodate the different schedules.   Middle schools have similar issues, although not quite as extensively.

(4)  The traditional school calendar evolved as a coordination mechanism; switching to a year-round school deprives the Wake Schools, families in Wake Schools and the surrounding community of those benefits.  (Contrary to popular myth, the traditional calendar did not come out of agriculture. Farms need workers in the spring and fall a lot more than in the summer.)