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Kids Need Summer Direction, Why Not Year-Round School?

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 23, 2008

About 200,000 Hillsborough County school kids are pretty much at a loose end.

They're glad to be off school, but unless they're working, 11 weeks off doesn't do them much good.

Here's the downside:

•Kids leak. Stuff they learned in the spring tends to fall out of their heads over the summer. Too much of September will be wasted catching up.

•This is a tough economy for parents. Summer camps aren't an option for many budgets, and precious few families enjoy the luxury of having a parent at home.

•This is a predatory world. School-age children are not equipped to handle the volume or the variety of unsuitable messages and values they're exposed to via computers, television, print, radio and their peers.

I would like to propose year-round school. This isn't the 1950s. Why do we insist on maintaining a calendar rooted in a world long since passed into memory? The way we do school should directly address the educational and social realities of today.

It seems "outcome-based" instruction is here to stay, so why not leverage that reality to rebuild the school year around compartmentalized units and incremental progression? Such an approach would allow for a staggered calendar, customized schedules, flexible vacation planning, individualized advancement criteria and remediation in sequence.

What I'm suggesting reimagines school, so it might not happen right away. Meanwhile, the following ideas should help parents deal with summer doldrums.

•Write a "summer contract" with your kids: required reading, limited television, rationed video and computer use, a daily exercise regimen and regular chores. These elements not only are manageable, they're the parents' responsibility to implement.

•Go on family outings twice weekly. We have museums, beaches, state parks, Frisbee-golf courses, matinee movies and a host of other affordable destinations. Get off the couch, and get out with your family.

•It is critical that adults join in the fun. Reading, exercise, board games: Anything we do with our children increases the value of the activity exponentially.

Children are dependent on leadership from their parents. The truth is: They thrive on it.

Columnist Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul @gmail.com.

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