Q&A of the Day – Florida’s Year-Round School Test Program
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: Brian, You do incredible work for us. Keep it up! Just a word about year round school. Back in the late 1970's into the early 1980's (Not exactly sure of the start and end dates) Jupiter High School went year round. It was called Concept 6. Students went 4 quarters a year. You could take off any one of the quarters per year. Parents loved it! If you didn't take off any quarters for three years you could graduate a year early. Don't know any other details. The school boards across the state could analyze this if any records still exist.
Bottom Line: The topic of Florida’s year-round school test program has been in the news recently as the Martin County School Board considered, then quickly unconsidered (following feedback from some parents), applying to participate in the state of Florida’s year-round school pilot program. We’ve just kicked off this year’s state legislative session, however it was in last year’s state legislative session that the Year-round School Pilot Program became law. As is stated in the summary analysis of the bill:
Florida schools operate mainly on a traditional, 180-day schedule, but are authorized to operate on a year-round schedule. Year-round schools have educational opportunities over an eleven- or twelve-month period, with shorter, staggered vacation periods, as opposed to traditional schedules having educational opportunities over an eight or nine consecutive month period with consecutive months for vacation. During the 2021-2022 school year, 16 public schools in 10 school districts participated in a year-round school schedule.
To study the issues, benefits, and schedule options for instituting a year-round school program for all students, the bill creates a year-round school pilot program, beginning with the 2024-2025 school year. The pilot program is established for a period of 4 years and requires the Department of Education (DOE) to assist school districts in establishing a year-round school program within at least one elementary school in the district.
The bill allows school districts to apply for participation and specifies that the Commissioner of Education (commissioner) must select five school districts to participate in the pilot program. The selected schools, to the extent possible, should represent a variety of demographics, including, but not limited to, an urban, a suburban, and a rural school district.
Ok, so back to today’s note. Year-round school wasn’t authorized under the state’s new law – school districts have long had the opportunity to choose the year-round model – a la the Jupiter High example of decades gone by. Florida’s new law specifically called for five diverse school districts to participate in a new test program so the state can assess the performance of students under the model. And in fact, there’s one school district, Charlotte County, which has been making use of the year-round model for decades with select schools. The Florida school with the longest active year-round program has been Charlotte County’s Sallie Jones Elementary School. The year-round model has had 80% parental approval and educators at the school have stated that students don’t experience the summer slide in education that’s known to persist for most students educated through the traditional school year model.
So, in a vacuum, the state's longest operating year-round school has been considered an overwhelming success by faculty, parents and students alike. It’s part of the reason, along with data from schools across the country, that the state wants to more closely study the application of year-round education with a cross-section of schools that are representative of the state...to see if perhaps it's something that shouldn’t become the standard as opposed to a seldom used option within the state. Currently, approximately 3%-4% of grade schools in the US use year-round models and notably, two of the top performing countries for education outcomes in the world, Australia and Japan, use the year-round model.
While there are many schools that are operated year-round across the country and for that matter around the world, what there hasn’t been to-date is conclusive data as to the measurable impact, be it good or bad, the change makes with specific controls in place. In other words, if you take the same students, in the same schools, and introduce the year-round model what happens? The largest accredited study attempting to determine this was published in the National Library of Medicine in 2019 and their summary findings were inconclusive. Quoting the study’s summary: Available evidence is insufficient to determine the effects of multi-track year-round calendars in improving academic achievement because of inconsistencies across studies. Effect sizes in the body of evidence were small, and information was lacking on how the intervention is implemented.
That’s what the state of Florida is seeking to answer by having schools enter a controlled study as they implement year-round programs. For now, that won’t be the case in Martin County. There are a few counties which have applied but for now there’s been no interest in South Florida and little interest on the Treasure Coast. The idea of change is sometimes as much of a barrier of entry than the actual implementation of a change can be. However, if you ask most of the parents, students and educators in Florida’s longest operating year-round program...every parent, every student and every school district should be interested.