School Schedules Part 2 - Year Round Schools

The below post is the second in a series of post dealing with alternatives to the traditional school calendar and school day.

An article by the Center for Public Education...

Three Most Common Schedules

1. 60–20 and 60–15: The year is divided into three 60-day sessions with three 20-day vacation periods. A variation on this schedule is the 60–15, which allows for an additional three–four week common vacation. As with most year-round schedules, this plan can be carried out using either a single-track or multi-track system. Together, these two types of calendars account for 37 percent of all year-round schools.
2. 45–15 and 45–10: These schedules account for the largest portion of all year-round calendars (40 percent). In the 45–10 system, 45 days of instruction are followed by 15 days of vacation. The related 45–10 plan provides an additional four-week common vacation for staff and students. Again, either of these plans can be implemented in either a single-track or multi-track system.
3. Concept 6: The year is divided into six terms of approximately 43 days. This plan is typically used as a three-track, year-round schedule to address overcrowding issues with students and teachers divided into three groups that attend two consecutive sessions and then have one session off. This pattern is repeated for a total of 172 instructional days. During the 1997–1998 school year, eight percent of year-round schools were following this plan.

Are year-round schools effective?

The answer seems to be a qualified “yes.”

For the complete article and statistics, click HERE.