With a brand new school year set to start next week, some education officials are pushing for an end to summer vacation.
Granton Superintendent Arnie Snook says summer vacation is a relic from our old ag-based economy. The rest of the world doesn’t play by the same rules, and foreign students now out-perform American students in tests.
Snook says the long summer vacation results in many students dropping or forgetting some of what they’ve learned. As a result of the long break, he says elementary teachers have told him they spend nearly the first two months every year just re-teaching forgotten lessons.
Most states require 180 days in the classroom, although many other countries require more. Schools in some countries meet up to 220 days a year.
Snook says year-round classes wouldn’t necessarily mean more school days. He points to some districts in California, which breaks up the school year into a system where students spend 45 days in school and 15 days off.
As the pressure increases to improve student performance, Snook says he wouldn’t be surprised to see individual schools moving toward something other than the traditional school year.