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In 1960, Park Elementary School in Hayward, California introduced a year-round schedule to its parents and students. In a year-round schedule, students attend school for 9 weeks and then get a 3-week break. Since 1960, many school districts around the nation have welcomed this schedule to their schools. Currently, Wake Country has 32 multi-track year-round schools in its district. Many Panther Creek students attended various year-round schools in the area.
After speaking with parents of children attending year-round schools, it is clear that they have had great success and experiences with the calendar. On the other hand, parents of children attending traditional schools are against moving to a year-round calendar.
The Wake School Board considered switching the Mills Park Schools (Elementary and Middle) from traditional to year-round in 2014. A
fter this news was released, parents, students, and others took groups of protestors outside the school. It is apparent that those who were started in traditional schools want to stay traditional. The frustrated parents explained to the Raleigh News & Observer that those who had children on different school calendars would have a summer vacation of less than 10 days.
Many students in schools suffer from mental health issues or just simple exhaustion. A senior at Panther Creek, Brendan Whittaker says, “9 weeks on and 3 weeks off is beneficial because people get drained from being in school for so long”. Many students, including myself, tend to burnout after they’ve attended school for a long period without a break, so a 3-week break every 9 weeks is a great time to reset.
North Carolina has no public year-round high schools, meaning that all 32 are middle and elementary schools. After speaking with Taylor Crawford, a senior at Panther Creek who attended Alston Ridge Middle, a year-round middle school, she thinks, “the (year-round) schedule benefits the younger kids far more”.
Year-round schools have high approval rates from parents and former students, but some think it has many disadvantages. John Dube attended two year-round middle schools, East Cary Middle School and Alston Ridge Middle School. John claims that he “would rather be on a traditional calendar” when he made the change from a year-round middle school to a traditional high school.
Through my studies, I have noticed, in the Cary/Apex/Morrisville area, more and more elementary schools are popping up and it seems as though the Wake School Board has a plan. I have seen that the Board is having multiple schools built in an immediate area with one school being year-round and the other being traditional. For example, in 2017, Hortons Creek Elementary was built approximately 1.9 miles away from Alston Ridge Elementary. In my eyes, this is to give parents an opportunity to decide whether to send their children to either school calendar.
All though there have been occasions where people have spoken against both calendars, it seems as though the board is working to give families options to send their children to their desired destination. Each calendar has its pros and cons but it is definite that their children are getting one of the best public school educations in the nation in the categories of high school readiness, diversity, and test scores.
