Originally Published in the May 23rd Print Publication
The Youths of America are tired. As well as their educators who have to put-up with uncooperative students and rotting in their desks on a Friday night after a whole 7-hour school day to grade assignments, score tests and create lesson plans for the week on. Leaving the weekend for them and their pupils to rest, recharge, and prepare for the next set of 5-day school into the continuous cycle of non-stop studying and grading within.
A small light emits from two torches, flaring with hope to burn this redundant cycle of work is the 4-day school week schedule and the Year-Round calendar.
The 4-day school week proposes to cut the conventional 5-day school week down to 4 days, adding an extra day to our 2 days of freedom for us to rejuvenate and spend more time on hobbies and with our family—which studies have proven to be true! Although, to make up for the loss of a single day, the hours of school would be extended by an hour longer for all of the 4 days.
The only minor to this schedule is the fact that studies on this have provided mixed results, varying in different areas in America. For example, a study in Colorado showed a “statistically significant improvement in math scores among students on a four-day schedule, while a similar study found no significant differences in student performance” (NCSL).
The year-round schedule, or the Balanced Schedule proposes that schools run for typically 45 days of instruction, then following 15 days of rest; they have coined this the “45/15 model.” This would happen by taking out some weeks of summer and distributing them to the holiday breaks (Winter break, Thanksgiving break, etc.), extending the break wedged between the school weeks and also trimming the summer break to keep a flow going that wouldn’t have students lose the knowledge they’ve curated throughout the 180 days of school; specifically students from lower income families.
Articles and reports express how the aim for this schedule is to reduce learning loss over the summer, which is found to be mainly affecting lower income families as over the summer, these students don’t seem to have much access to books, which lowers their reading scores.
The hitch to the year-round schedule is what are parents going to do with childcare? How are parents going to hire a babysitter consistently for those extended holiday breaks?
Then there’s summer jobs. With the summer shortened, students wouldn’t have that chance to gain that experience to see what it would be like to be an adult, what it would be like to rush and serve different kinds of customers, to work with your lousy or stellar coworker. You would not be able to experience what it’s like to be put into different places and areas with different people and situations outside of your home, outside of school, and so on.
In the end, there are many other factors that contribute to the cause of our drained souls, and the current school schedule doesn’t make things any better. But a great point arises amongst the drawbacks: what do we have to lose? We’re already tired and we’re burnt out from papers and papers that don’t seem to stop piling on throughout the years. So would it hurt us to try to find something to work around our outdated, relentless schedule?
