Vince Matrisciano is a Project Management Engineer who worked for the Department of Defense for over 30 years, managing complex projects, large groups of people, and leading process and organizational change activities. He is a certified Project Management Professional, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and Human Capital Strategist

Headlines abound regarding grim test scores, continued Covid learning loss, and other educational shortcomings in the Garden State and across the country. The NJ Education Report website alone contains no less than eleven recently published articles on the subject. Some potential solutions have been offered, with very limited success – if any. Test scores are not improving. High School students are no more prepared to enter college or the working world. The bottom line is there is a lot of talk on the subject but very little effective action. Throwing money at the problem has not worked either. Updating the school funding formula will help but will not solve the problem. Something must be done, something drastic. Our children and teachers deserve it, and we have been failing them. 

Our current school calendar is antiquated and is contributing to the problem. There is no real reason why we have a long summer break, other than “we’ve always done it that way.” Our kids are smarter and more resilient than we give them credit for. Although a long summer break is fun for a kid, it is not essential to their mental and academic health, and if an expanded school year is implemented correctly, it won’t be missed. Other than resistance to change itself, there is no reason not to explore year-round schooling for NJ. 

Some US school districts have implemented year-round school calendars – also known as balanced school calendars – which typically redistribute the standard 180 days of classroom instruction more evenly over the course of a year. The main reason for this is to mitigate the “summer slide” – or the learning loss over the summer break. Although most US schools using a year-round calendar still feature 180 days of instruction, some districts have tried extended year-round calendars, which add extra days to increase student achievement. Why shouldn’t NJ follow this model and transition to an extended year-round calendar by adding extra school days to increase student achievement, among other benefits? 

The reported benefits of year-round schooling include less summer learning loss, or summer slide. It eliminates the wasted time teachers have spent in the first month of a school year reviewing what was previously taught and forgotten. It provides a more structured environment for students, particularly those with unsupportive or unstable homes. Teaching at a year-round school means receiving a year-round salary and flexibility on when to take time off – not being restricted to the summer break or other set breaks. Parents do not have to find alternative childcare during the summer months. Year-round schooling gives additional time for students to receive remedial support and catch up on missed concepts and allows for greater flexibility in daily scheduling as well as scheduling extracurricular activities (such as sports, enrichment programs, internships, or educational trips), family commitments, and vacations. If a child is struggling to meet their current grade level, there is more time to get extra help. “Summer School” is no longer a stigma because everyone is doing it. With all of these benefits, why are we not already doing this?

There are reported drawbacks of year-round schooling, which include the loss of a perceived “much-needed” summer break for teachers and students. Students at a year-round school may not have the ability to experience certain outside activities like summer sports teams or camps. It costs more to run a school year-round, and the year-round schedule may make it difficult for students to secure summer employment. It may also require adjustments in community services and programs that rely on summer breaks. It prevents teachers from holding a second/summer job (which is a need derived from the current system). And of course there is the typical resistance to any change. Most, if not all, of these drawbacks are due to improper implementation of a new system. If implemented properly, most of the drawbacks go away.

We can do just that with more days in session (up to 240 days vs the traditional 180 days, providing much more flexibility in how we teach our children, both inside and outside of the classroom. Many days will be spent outside the classroom in activity-based learning, attending day camps, sports leagues, or paid internships. Continuous schooling with no long-term breaks allows for reinforcement of learning using the science of reading and the concept of spaced repetition (where topics are taught, taught again the next day, then refreshed in a few days or weeks later, significantly reducing learning loss). It also provides opportunities to adjust the way we teach our students, moving away from the centuries-old methods we still use today (i.e., lecture-memorize-test-forget) to a more experiential model that facilitates sustained learning. We can accommodate different learning styles and take more time per learning objective to ensure the knowledge is absorbed, not just memorized. 

In fact, regularly scheduled mental health days and short brain breaks are as important, if not more, as long physical breaks, and this approach of many small breaks will be more effective than the traditional three months during the summer. The benefits of the summer break, such as the ability to attend camp or find employment, will become formal additions to the curriculum. This provides opportunities for all students, not just the ones that can afford the private expense. For example, day camps will become a part of the summer curriculum, intertwined with classroom learning. Paid internships will become part of the high school curriculum and will be linked with classroom learning to prepare students for their life after graduation, whether that includes attending college or not. This requires partnerships between the school system and local businesses, to provide those internship opportunities and provide guidance on what the students need to learn to be successful after graduation. Year-long schooling also provides stability to students with food insecurity or other social needs that are addressed by the school. The year-long plan allows for greater flexibility within the curriculum while formally incorporating many of the activities typically experienced during breaks and linking them to classroom learning for a more holistic learning experience.

We know this new approach will benefit students, and it will benefit teachers and parents as well. For teachers this will be a year-long job with a year-long salary (no more need for a second job), shorter days (reducing/eliminating take-home work), more flexibility on when to take personal time off (not confined to the summer or holiday breaks), more time to bond with their students, and better overall work-life balance. The benefits for parents include elimination of the hassle and expense of summer childcare and/or camp. No more worries of their child being unsupervised during the day when they are at work (or interrupting them if they are working from home). 

These many, many benefits to year-round schooling come with very few drawbacks. Yes, this plan will cost more, but parents will not need to find summer childcare which could offset some of the added cost. And perhaps streamlining the education system can offset more of the costs. There will be nay-sayers who will find ways to say “no”. But the main reason for making this change is to improve our education system – to benefit the students, our kids. Who can say no to that? We will have a new governor and administration next year, so this is a perfect time to make a major change like this. Who will have the courage to make this change and walk-the-walk, not just talk?