There is a misconception regarding the elimination of the summer vacation from school. Most people who favor eliminating summer vacation do not want to extend the school year as much as they want to reduce the amount of time away from the classroom. To have three whole months away from a mind-stimulating environment is entirely too long, and is an archaic paradigm which dates back to an agricultural economy. The standard school year is 180 days long. Even if it were to be extended, it would most likely be no more than 200 days long. I personally favor the concept of year-round schooling. I think it would take less pressure off of teachers, and students would retain more information, especially those participating in an elementary program. Year-long schooling is in no way to designed to prevent families from vacationing or in any way undermind the importance of family.

If school goes year round, which in reality is a good way to prepare them for the future, there will still be breaks that will most likely last up to two weeks at a time. The worst that would happen is the requirement for better planning on the part of the rest of the family, or shorter vacations. With adults changing jobs more often than ever, vacation time will become harder to get, which means shorter jaunts to closer locations. Life will adjust to fit whatever schedules the school system come up with.

Yes I think it will be year round soon. They already have several weeks off at Fall Break, Christmas, Spring Break, Easter, etc. so there is plenty of time to squeeze in a family vacation ~ nobody goes for more than a week or 2 anyway.

If it is something special like a trip to Europe, you take off from school and do the work on vacation.

The concept of having summers off began when we were an agrarian society, and families needed their children to help with the summer planting, etc. Year round school has the same number of vacation days, just not an exceptionally long one in the summer. It has been studied and proven that this prevents students from having to spend the (significant) first part of each school year relearning what they’ve forgotten over the summer.

Year-round schools still have a longer break in the summer, about 6 weeks. They also have longer breaks, about 2 weeks a few times each year, not randomy place workdays and stuff. I see no problem with them, and I think they’ll get kids used to being adults, when you don’t get a 10 week break every summer.

Vacation is hardly the issue. What’s important is academic achievement and our competitiveness with other nations. In order to remain competitive, the US society has to get its act together and establish stringent guidelines for academic standards and expectations.

Shorter vacations spaced during set intervals would assist this country in achieving this goal as retention would increase, thereby allowing teachers to introduce new content rather than reteach material forgotten during summer months.