Sam R. Hall: Mississippi school districts should give serious consideration to year-round school calendar

Sam R. Hall, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo
·4 min read

Dec. 3—School districts across Mississippi are considering year-round or balanced school calendars. The idea is a key piece of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann's upcoming legislative agenda. And newly named State Superintendent Robert Taylor is a big proponent.

In essence, a balanced school year does away with the two-month summer break. Instead, schools would take a one-month summer break and the other four weeks off would be spread throughout the year. The most common balanced calendar consists of essentially four 45-day learning periods with three-week breaks in between and the four-week summer.

The balanced calendar is not a new idea. They first appeared in the last 1960s and early 1970s in California and Illinois suburbs that were experiencing extreme growth. By moving to year-round calendars, districts there were able to adopt dual-track learning to offset the need of building new schools or using temporary structures like trailers.

According to education experts Paul T. von Hippel and Jennifer Graves, the trend saw massive growth in the 1990s, when as many as 6% of school nationwide were on year-round calendars. From 2000 to 2018, the number of schools dropped to about 3%.

Then COVID-19 hit, causing major disruptions to school attendance and, in the aftermath, additional problems with preparedness and achievement levels. Educators and policymakers have been looking for ways to address these issues, and a balanced calendar schedule is once again becoming an attractive idea.

The biggest argument for it is that, in addition to cutting down on the learning drain that occurs over the summer, remediation sessions can happen in real-time throughout the year. During those three-week breaks, one to two weeks are often used as remediation. Proponents, like Taylor, say studies show remediation taking place at the time of the lessons is much more effective than doing it over the summer because it can be more targeted to the lessons with which students are struggling instead of redoing an entire class.

Opponents, however, say there is little evidence to back up many of the suppositions. Von Hippel and Graves argue that the studies that do exist are not comprehensive enough to draw a definitive conclusion. They also point to anecdotal evidence that suggests long-term learning could slightly decrease with longer breaks spread throughout the year versus having it concentrated in the summer.

The Mississippi Legislature in 2020 held hearings on balanced calendars. Stephen L. Pruit with the Southern Regional Education Board admitted then that the research was thin. But then-State Superintendent Carey Wright made an interesting point.

"Where they are finding success (with research) are in areas with low-income children, children with disabilities and children who do not speak English," she told lawmakers then. "Because those intersession (break) times are perfect for those kids (to get caught up)."

Those results alone are a strong argument for Mississippi schools to look at a balanced calendar, given the number of students who fit into those categories. It's one reason Hosemann wants lawmakers to pass incentives for school districts that make the change. While he doesn't want to force any district to do so, he does want to ease any financial burden to do so and maybe even provide a bit of extra funding to encourage others on the fence to give it a try.

So far, at least three districts in Mississippi have made the change. Corinth, who has been doing it the longest, has enjoyed good success. Leaders there are a strong advocate of the balanced academic calendar. Gulfport and Starkville-Oktibbeha County districts have also adopted the new calendars, while districts in Simpson and Lamar counties have made smaller adjustments to test such a model. Tupelo Public School District, home to one of the largest high school in the state, is also considering a balanced calendar.

So while the research may be thin, what does exist is mostly positive, especially in areas of greatest concern to Mississippi. We need big changes in public education, where we rethink how we approach learning to meet the varied demands of our diverse students. The more districts that try it, the more data we get and the clearer the realities of such a change will be.

SAM R. HALL is executive editor of the Daily Journal. Contact him at sam.hall@djournal.com or follow @samrhall on Twitter.