Eschewing the traditional September start to the new school year (or, at most, mid-August), some Richmond, Virginia, public schools kicked off the 2024–25 academic calendar on July 22.
The district had initially gone to a 200-day, rather than a 180-day, school year at two pilot schools in 2023, as a way to make up for Covid-19 related learning loss.
According to their superintendent:
Fairfield Court Elementary’s early-literacy proficiency rates jumped from 61 percent to 82 percent in just one year. It now has the seventh-highest early literacy scores out of twenty-six elementary schools in the district, despite having the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students (97 percent). Cardinal Elementary, where over 80 percent of students are recent immigrants, also saw gains, going from 53 percent to 58 percent proficient. To top it all off, despite the longer year, attendance at these schools actually improved.
As a result, two more schools were added to the longer school year initiative.
Four schools is, of course, a tiny number. But what if America’s largest school district, New York City, were to give a 200-day school year a try? We asked parents and teachers how they’d feel about such an initiative. The results came out split, not only by school division, but, more importantly, by one’s belief in the efficacy of public school education overall.
Many parents of elementary school children were delighted by the idea that they’d get more free childcare days.
“The responsibility and costs that are placed on parents because of these extremely long summer breaks are disproportionate to the rest, relaxation, or opportunities for ‘other activities’ that have been explained as benefits of being ‘off’ so long,” lamented a parent who asked to be identified by the initials MJA. “Children inevitably lose skills and academic progress, no matter how much support takes place during the summer. And this support is time consuming (at least) and expensive (at most). Parents spend heavy on care/camps for children during the summer.”
“For working parents it’s hard to manage a long summer break,” agreed mom Swati De-Das, while an anonymous parent chimed in, “I’d love for the school year to be longer! The vast majority of American children are not needed to work on farms anymore so the notion that parents have to figure out what to do for 2+ months is not only stressful but expensive!”
Some parents of teenagers, however, resented that their children might lose the chance for summer employment or college prep.
“In the summer, (my son) works at a sub shop doing work that’s the very opposite of what he does during the school year,” claimed a mom from Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “He gets a mental break and turns his brain off for the hours he’s at work. He also learns how to interact with the public. With his demanding school schedule, he would never have time for something like this during the school year. If anything, I would be in favor of a longer summer, not a shorter one. It would be difficult if not impossible to get a job if they only had five or six weeks off.”
“No one wants to hire high school students for only six to eight weeks of work,” agreed a second parent. “By the time they are trained, they have to go back to school. A shorter break would make summer work much harder for high schoolers to get,” while a third added, “If they were to prolong the school year, not a single high schooler would be able to take any College Now program during summer. They wouldn’t be able to work (which is practically a prerequisite for college application) or use this time to study for SAT.”
Then there was the contingent which was against a longer school year due to practical concerns, imploring readers to “Imagine stinky school buildings with barely working AC? Hot and humid NYC? No, thank you,” followed up with, “most NYC school buildings are not equipped for summer and have no AC,” and warning, “If you want teachers to work through July, start by installing AC in all schools!”
But the biggest objections came from parents who just didn’t believe that adding twenty days to the NYC public school calendar would do any good.
“Regarding the extension of the school year, I don’t think the problem with the Department of Education is not having enough time to teach students—it’s rather using the time they have unwisely,” AW observed. “I guess the extra time would go to repeating the same lessons over and over, maybe add some political agenda; I don’t think this extra time would be spent covering more material. While more repetition might help students who are struggling, it would make more advanced students even more bored and miserable at school. If this extra time is not carefully targeted and tutoring-like, I think it would be a total waste of resources.”
Similar comments included:
As long as they are “real days.” At the moment, the last week of school is my kids watching movies and has just become daycare…
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If you have kids in NYC public schools, you know that last weeks (if not months) of school are useless…
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In May and June after state tests, kids do nothing at school…
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They don’t do much in school during the year, so extending “not doing much” will not be productive…
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You're putting lots of faith in the idea that more NYC school education is better…
In this, the naysayers have an ally in Eva Moskowitz, CEO and Founder of Success Academy Charter Schools. While the Success Academies have a slightly longer school year than traditional NYC public schools, the biggest difference is their almost two hours longer average school day, so that at the end of a K–12 Success Academy education, a student has received almost three years of additional instructional time.
However, Moskowitz is the first to note that, “In theory, children can learn more if they have more time, but unless you actually establish what that additional learning will be and then hold schools accountable to achieve it, they’ll just spread out the same amount of learning over a larger number of days.”
While parents like Amy Tse offer that, “I always thought 180 days was way too short of a school year. Either that or lengthen the school day or offer more afterschool seats. Summer learning slide is real,” another predicted, “If the decision on how and how many days are planned is based on what is good for the students, it will be easy to come up with optimal answers. Unfortunately, these decisions are made by UFT (United Federation of Teachers union) for UFT, resulting in suboptimal outcomes.”
On that note, additional feedback included:
The UFT will never allow this without substantial compensation. Don’t forget—it also cuts into Summer School for D75 (special needs students) and many of those teachers are making an extra $20,000–$25,000 for six weeks…
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Keep in mind there are very few positions that are considered twelve-month DOE employees that work and need to reset themselves. When teachers/TA’s opt to work Summer Rising they get paid, while twelve-month employees have no choice and no extra bargaining agreements. Plus custodial staff are low in certain schools, they need time to clean, wax floors and paint…
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From a teacher’s perspective I don’t think everyone would come aboard with an extra nearly twenty days. The break is what we need from everything…
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The teachers union will never agree to this…
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Good luck getting the teachers union to agree…
At press time, neither the spokesperson for the Department of Education nor the United Federation of Teachers had responded to our request for a comment.
And then, finally, there was the parent who raged:
What a horrible idea! How do you measure positive results? What do you call education? Is it just about textbook learning, academic learning and test results? What about their spiritual growth, their social growth, their joy and happiness in life? They have to grow in all of these ways, as well. They do this through experience, socializing, and enjoying nature in the freedom of summer. Why would you want to coop children up in a stuffy, hot classroom staring at books for the entire calendar year? Learning is not just receiving information from teachers and books. It is also growing from within through experience and interaction. These “positive” results are a microscopic and myopic measure of what it means to be an educated, fulfilled and developed human being. It is an extremely warped vision of what it means to be educated.
As of 2024, going by NYC state test scores, less than half of our public school students were deemed to be reading on grade level, while a little bit more than that were performing at grade level in math.
If education is more than “textbook learning, academic learning and test results,” then perhaps NYC students are, in fact, doing splendidly in “spiritual growth, their social growth, their joy and happiness in life,” and are graduating as “educated, fulfilled, and developed human beings.”
It is, however, hard to believe that joy and happiness, much less fulfillment, can result from exiting school being unable to read, calculate, and as a result, perform any job beyond the menial level, not to mention earn enough to pursue a life of “spiritual and social growth.”
Because, when it comes to actual education, we’re not doing so well. Maybe a 200-day school year isn’t the answer. But neither is suggesting everything is fine just the way it is.
