It’s hard to imagine a school year without summer break, but it is a future that OHS students may have to come to terms with. Most arguments against year round school are made by students, and while most can be attributed to the fear of the unfamiliar, some have a relevant basis. In theory, in a world with year round school student experience would be improved. In reality however, this would be detrimental to the schedules of the school and students, as well as having no feasible impacts on the learning environment of those it’s trying to help.

Year round school would severely clash with students’ summer schedules. Summer jobs would be quit, summer camp would be non-existent, and sports lacking a summer practice schedule would suffer. Additionally summers between school years would be non-existent, one month a student is in 8th grade, the next they are beginning highschool. Nevertheless it would be impossible to schedule family vacations. For example, my only close cousins haven’t shared a vacation with me in years because of the adoption of year round school. 

Another problem with year-round schooling is the adoption of more frequent, week-long breaks. These cause inconsistencies and holes in the timelines of students, and would take away opportunities of enrichment throughout the school year. Already, it’s hard for OSD students to remember information between the week of fall break, and a good chunk of their time is spent simply reviewing. 

This adoption would cause for more breaks and complete overturn of scholastic standards. Students would see more time out of school, which is only more time to forget what they just learned. 

In the status quo OHS students are not expected to retain information from before christmas break. With year round schooling, breaks of this length are placed through the schedule, and while one of the goals of instating year round school is to reduce the impacts of a summer away from school, It just creates more instances of forgetting.

There is no real retaining of information, students suffer severely, and if in place, year round school would induce a lot of backlash. Why put the schedules and plans of students at risk? Why ask more of the teachers? Why put trust into a system lacking evidence and knowledge behind it? It is this focus on supposed increase in scores that undermines the wishes of the students, and creates cold learning environments. Whether it be in preschool, elementary school, or highschool, the Oxford School District should stop any consideration of implementing a year round school schedule.