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Show SCBOOLTIME; Thursday, July 22, Page 2 Assorted UDO -UX MOHTS AKE USED TO KEt t$OMAmi M TMt HBP" 135 R. State I(G? 11 Jot ac faSctoo&U- Large Selection While Supply Lasts PBS MM O SSI ESIt. 4 iV 7-14 J 25 to 34 SB. PL BOW. 5231 7S3-3S29 School Change Is Nrjded By KENT ALLEN During the third week of August, classrooms in Alpine School District will begin to fill and another year of educating our children will be underway. As in years past, the new school year brings an annual problem back into focus; overcrowding. Despite the school districts program of building new schools and adding more rooms to existing schools, the problem cannot be solved very quickly. Economics being the major deterrent. After several years of dealing with overcrowding, the administration of Alpine School District (hereafter referred to as ASD) offered five options for consideration of dealing with student housing other than new school construction. The alternative that drew more interest than favor was option , A: Year Round School There are several schedules for year round schools. The two plans which ASD studied, maximized building use on an increase of from 33 percent to 50 percent above current figures. The first, the 46-15 plan is a quarter design with students assigned in equal groups to one of four tracks, Each group attends school for nine weeks then has a three week vacation. The tracks are staggered so that three groups of students are in school and one group is on vacation at any one time. This plan increases building capacity over the year by 33 percent. The second, the Concept 8 plan divides the year into six sections of 44 days each. The students are in school for approximately four months and vacation for two months then the process is repeated. This plan increases building capacity by 50 ' percent through the year. As reported in a bulletin from ASD, the greatest strengths of year round school plans are: 1. Increased building capacity, 2. Year round use of buildings. 3. More flexibility in enrichment enrich-ment and remedial opportunities, oppor-tunities, 4. Greater learning retenskm and 5. Improved education quality. The greatest problems of year round schools are: 1. Student scheduling (to keep all family members on the same track), i. The necessity of the whole community going on the plan at the same time, 3. Expense for school building modifications (air conditioning) and 4. Some, changes in family lifestyle. Year round school plans have been adopted by several school districts across the nation. The nearest school districts to currently schedule sche-dule year round schooling are Cherry Creek School District 5 and Jefferson County Schools in Denver, Colorado. The administrators of these districts served as consultants last fall when the UEA held a fact finding conference at Timpview High SchooL Both plans have been accepted in Colorado because of rapid population growth and subsequent overcrowding over-crowding in the classroom. The people who came from these school . districts to inform our teachers and administrators about year One of the fathers I talked with was strongly against year round schools. He said, "It didn't hurt you to go to school for nine months and vacation for three, so why should we change the system now?" Others expressed the view, "After seeing a brsgiit ssnny day like today , how could you keep a chUds mind on his studies?" One mother suggested paying mare to help have more resource classes available. Just about everyone has an idea or suggestion that they feel would improve their childrens education, but very little is done about it. In the June 23rd 1980 edition of Tims Magazine, the whole issue was dedicated to the. study of the Soviet Union. The - section on education was very informative. infor-mative. The Soviet children attend "45-15" ' . r imp Uc Seisin jSsllllJI liSlii iPS Modified "Concept 6" TT 1v School VacitT on round programs, stated they had found some surprising advantages with the system that they had not forseen. Because of shorter vacations, there was less learning loss, HmiwHwg extra review time; drop out rates declined because of flexible scheduling which made it easier to drop back in for students; stress and illness absenteeism declined, and teacher-student burn out rates declined. During my investigation of year round schools, I have talked with many people. school six days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 pjn. The required " curriculum runs through tenth grade and covers about the same amount of material that U.S. students receive attending five days a week - from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The Soviet Union insists on very close ties between parents and schools. If parents fail to respond when problems arise, school officials may notify the Cont o Pis IS |
