For many people, a balanced school year is something they’ve never thought about having. However, it is becoming more and more common across the country. According to Resilient Educator, 11 of the 50 states have public schools that participate in balanced school years. A balanced school year is when students get more breaks throughout the entire year rather than a traditional long summer break. There are several reasons why a year round school year is beneficial.
“I think a balanced school year would be beneficial to students,” senior Libby Pattan said, “because it would take away from the stress of having such long periods of school at one time.”
With regular scheduled school years, many students have up to three months of a break for summer. Students tend to forget useful information within the three months of summer break, forcing them to review for up to the first month of school before beginning a new year of learning. Doing this puts students behind instead of allowing them to move forward in school.
“It is very challenging having a three month break after each school year. I always forget all the information that I spent the whole year learning, and need to take a few weeks to review everything,” Pattan said. “I think it would be much easier to have little breaks more often throughout the year, instead of one long break at the end of the year.”
A balanced school year allows students to catch up on behind work that they may have throughout the year. Students in a non-balanced school year tend to get behind on school work. During a traditional school year students have five days on, two days off with loads of homework on top of sports and possibly a job. Students are expected to have homework turned in on time with no exceptions, forcing them to do their work most of the time without understanding it. With a balanced school year the breaks can allow students to have less stress knowing they can have more time to finish their work and fully understand it.
“I think students will benefit because they will have more time to process the information that they learned during the school year,” Pattan said.
Another benefit of a balanced school year is the longer breaks around holidays allowing more time for travel and family time. This makes it easier for parents to work around the school schedule and take time off work in time to have a vacation over Christmas and/or Spring break.
According to Raymond Geddes students’ quality of education improves when having a balanced school year. “The stamina students have for new learning and rigorous material increases with frequent breaks built in. This allows educators to cover more material in greater depth. Disciplines like music and art have the opportunity to be included and upgraded in an extended school year.”
Overall, a balanced school year can help students benefit tremendously. It can help them have less stress, create better study habits and increase the ability for students to enjoy their childhood by spending time outside or playing a sport and allow students to travel and explore. A balanced school year can help kids more than school a year with a three month summer break.
