Seven Rules to YEAR-ROUND SCHOOLING

School Administrator, March, 1994 by Gary A. Knox

Research and Dialogue Make Implementation Possible

Readers of the daily newspaper weather pages know three things about Yuma, Ariz. Yuma stands last in the alphabetical listing of National Weather Service reporting stations. Yuma typically appears in the reddest portion of the national weather map. Yuma is often the nation's hot spot.

Our local newspaper headline on June 27, 1990 read: "Heat Wave Continues to Hammer Yuma." What the headline did not say was: "Wow! 122 degrees!"

As superintendent of an elementary school system in Yuma, I sat on a hot seat for other important reasons. I had to find ways to avoid overcrowded schools and improve student achievement. Moreover, I had to find solutions--hot weather or not--in a climate of sharply declining revenues.

Two short summers after our record-setting heat, a mid-summer newspaper headline stated: "Many In Crane Start School Soon." In headline parlance, "soon" meant the following day.

Half-Baked Notions?

We had found a solution. In short, more than 5,000 students now attend our six schools on a single-track year-round calendar. Year-round means the traditional summer vacation is broken into parts and redistributed in segments throughout the year. A 45-15 schedule allows our students to attend school in four 45-day periods separated by 15-day intersessions (vacations).

Some believed we'd been out in the midday sun too long when we announced we planned to investigate a year-round calendar. Imagine year-round education in a community where the thermometer shatters 110 degrees for weeks on end, breaking the century mark at least four months annually. Some thought us half-baked to even consider this calendar change, but nevertheless we started school in mid-summer on a single-track modified 45-15 calendar.

Executive Director Charles Ballinger of the National Association for Year-Round Education cites our experience as an example of success under improbable circumstances. He has noted that if Yuma can have year-round schools in the hot, low desert climate of southern Arizona, one can implement year-round schooling anywhere.

Essential Steps

Year-round education can be implemented anywhere--when the community is ready. That's what this story is about. Is the community--in our case, a farming community producing most of the nation's winter lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli--ready to abandon the nine-month agrarian school calendar? Will a community break from tradition to gain better student achievement, a reduced tax burden, and/or less crowded schools?

Our decision to make this radical move was considered carefully over three or four years. The decision emerged after extensive research and considerable community dialogue. As we reviewed, cussed, discussed, and shaped a workable year-round education plan, I came to realize some essential rules to bring effective implementation in an unsure community.

* Implementation Rule No. 1: Do your homework before seriously initiating the idea of year-round education with your community.

Before you talk about year-round education, know what this concept means. Know how a year-round education structure can work. Know the difference between single-track and multi-track. Understand 45-15, the Orchard Plan, Concept Six, and other typical year-round education calendars. Know major drawbacks. Know the difference between real problems and false perceptions.

Our dialogue with parents and staff started with literally dozens of general questions, such as:

* How can we keep energy costs to a minimum during the hot summer months?

* How is a concentrated physical cleaning of a school to be done?

* How are classrooms shared?

* How will classes be organized?

* What assurance do we have about siblings being on the same track?

* What happens to interscholastic athletic programs?

Be prepared to respond to a broad array of questions. We had reasonable replies, but we assigned a community task force the responsibility to investigate and give answers.

A Public Process

* Implementation Rule No. 2: Involve your community in making recommendations about a possible year-round conversion.

To involve our community we met with residents. We talked to parents. We held public forums. We met in schools. We spoke in homes. We sent information home with students. We talked to staff. We brought the governing board along, step by step. We published our findings for all to read and review. We answered question after question. We researched year-round education until we knew more than the experts. (Then we picked expert brains to be confident we hadn't missed anything.)

We formed investigation teams of parents, citizens, business representatives, and staff members. Participants were selected for their open minds, not for their positions on year-round education. We did the things the textbooks suggest.

We used an NAYRE publication, Yea r-Round Education Resource Guidebook, which provides some basic guidelines for moving toward a decision. We adapted those guidelines to our circumstances. In all, five community-based teams helped at various stages in the decision-making process. These teams recommended whether, when, and how to move to year-round education.