Year-round school in the United States

Switching to year round schooling has many positive effects. One benefit is that teachers are then able to have a year-round job. In addition, they have more time to plan lessons and class activities while not taking as long to reteach information that students are unable to retain over their summer break. Another reason schools switch to year round is that the students get more frequent breaks throughout the entire year, allowing students to get a break during every season. Some families are in favor of the year round calendar because they are allowed to take vacations at different times of the year rather than specific time frames, this also allows for families to spend more time together.[3]

Another purpose of year round schooling is to decrease overcrowding. Some schools operate on three different cycles of school which would have three groups going to school at different times. This would allow for a larger number of students to attend the same school while not having large class sizes. When this happens, it also allows for the school to be in constant use, rather than being unoccupied during breaks and summer.

A 2016 review summarized research on year-round schools as follows:

The effects of year-round calendars on test scores...once thought to be positive...now appear to be neutral at best. Although year-round calendars do increase summer learning, they reduce learning at other times of year, so that the total amount learned over a 12-month period is no greater under a year-round calendar than under a nine-month calendar. [There is also] evidence that year-round calendars make it harder to recruit and retain experienced teachers, make it harder for mothers to work outside the home, and reduce property values.

— Paul von Hippel, The Summer Slide [4] (2016)

Year-round calendars can offer a way to reduce school crowding, A crowded school can adopt a multi-track year-round calendar, which staggers students so that different groups of students attend on different calendars, or "tracks," with some students attending while others are on break. In this way the school can handle more students than it could if all students needed to be in school at the same time.[5] Multi-track year-round calendars have been used to reduce crowding in California, greater Las Vegas, and greater Raleigh, North Carolina, among other places."[4]

Compared to other ways to handle crowding—such as busing or portable classrooms—multi-track year-round calendars can be relatively inexpensive. However, if schools are open for longer, the operating and maintenance costs may increase up to 10 percent.

Businesses that rely on summer leisure time are not in favor of year-round calendars.[6] Summer camps and amusement parks often lead political opposition to year-round calendars, but some opposition is led by upper middle class parents who value summer vacations.[4] Rural areas rarely use year-round calendars because they conflict with farms' need for youth labor in summer.[4]