Summer, Curfews, and Year-Round School

An article in yesterday's Washington Times, "Summer times," talks about parental managing of children when school's out for the summer, which reminds me of something that I think we should seriously consider in DC: "year-round" schooling.

I thought this was something I wrote about in the blog before but I guess not (it was written elsewhere including in themail at www.DCWatch.com):

Ted Knutson asks [themail, March 13]: “if youth crime goes up on days when the schools are closed for snow (or the prediction of snow)?” How about being concerned about the reduction in opportunity to learn? One way to “reduce youth crime,” and more importantly to expand the community’s capacity to learn and grow, would be to expand the school year. If the average DC student starts off behind, let’s provide more time in school (N.B., I do understand that more of the same things not working isn’t necessarily better, but I have hopes that the curricular changes that are coming will be positive).

Suggestion One: how about a 210 or 220 day school year instead of 180 days? What better way to demonstrate DC’s commitment to K-12 education?

Suggestion Two: consider adopting a year-round school calendar. This could have at least three benefits, one that Ted would find of interest.

1) better utilization of school facilities that would require fewer school buildings overall;
2) elimination of the 2.5 month long summer break, which is a period where youth crime does increase; and
3) helping improve learning outcomes by reducing the time required for catch up and review in each subsequent year.
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Also see "Community Education and Neighborhood Schools" from the Neighborhood Planning meta-site.