Year-round Education is focused on reorganizing the school year to provide a more continuous learning patter. They achieve this by breaking up the long summer breaks into more frequent vacations during the school year. (NAYRE) Year-round schooling has not caught on in the U.S., where 37 of the 50 states have fewer than 10 year-round schools and just three states have over 100. Less than three percent of public schools are year-round and 84% of year-round sites are at elementary schools, mostly in states with benign climates. (USA Today, 7).
Even though the statistics are low year-round education is hardly a modern concept. The first year-round school was established nearly a decade ago in Bluffton, Indiana. It became the forerunner of modern year-round education. Although year-round education ceased during World War II, it made a comeback in 1968. At this time, Hayward California implemented an official year-round education program at Park Elementary School, which became the first year-round school following World War II. It remains to be the longest-running YRE program in the nation. (NAYRE).
There are three types of year-round education: Single-track YRE, Multi-track YRE, and Extended Year. Single-track provides a more continuous period of instruction. Most Single-track schools go to school for 9 weeks and get a 1-3 week break. Multi-track YRE is used to alleviate overcrowding in schools. Extended Year education simply extends their calendars to 240 days instead of the traditional 180 days. (NAYRE).
There are different purposes for the three types of schools. Overcrowding of large public schools is an issue that some metropolitan areas have to deal with. One solution for this problem is using the Multi-track YRE system. A Multi-track system incorporates many educational values of single-track, including intercessions. It was designed specifically for schools that had a shortage of classroom space.
