Argumentative Essay on The Importance Of Summer Break

📌Category: Education, Life, School
📌Words: 719
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 19 June 2021

Summer: a time for swimming, vacations, and most importantly for most students all around America, no school. Recently summer has been taken away from many students and replaced with breaks throughout the school instead, in a new system of year-round schooling. Year round schooling is not a good option because it takes away much-needed breaks for students, it creates stress on both students and teachers, and it neither has any significant effect on student’s test scores nor does it increase the quality of their education. Some may argue that students will forget the information that they had learned over the course of the schol year before because of the long break throught summer, during which many students don’t do much to exercise their brain. However, an easy solution for schools to this issue would be to promote fun summer educational activities within their school. They could assignment summer reading programs where students read books in eachange for fun prizes they would enjoy. Not only does this keep student’s minds active during the summer it also is a fun thing students get to do during the summer. 

Many students rely on summer break to find a job as an extra income. “In traditional settings, teachers are on 12 month contracts, work for nine months, and receive their salary over a 12 month period. Thus teachers often pursue other employment, generally in the summer; Doyle and Finn found that about 30 percent of teachers take summer jobs to supplement their incomes (Doyle & Finn, 1985, 29).” Many teachers take summer jobs when school is not in session because although they may be paid over a 12 month period, the actual money that is being given to them is for a 9th month period. With that being said, many teachers take summer jobs to help support their families. Taking away summer will take away the extra money teachers make while working over the summer which can be a crucial part of their salary. Many students also have the same issue with year round schooling, the majority of high school students have jobs in the summer in order to make money for things like college, to support their family, or just to have their own money in general. Taking away the summer break or even shortening it would take away this opportunity for both teachers and students. 

Summer break is a time for staff and students to focus on other aspects of their life outside of school and it provides a mental break for staff. A quote from an administrator who had workered in a year round school proves this theory,  “Year-round is never ending. You must live a no-break lifestyle ... stress is internalized. Most administrators are professional enough not to let it show, but it is felt inside. I think there is a tendency for administrators

to be less enthusiastic about routine things. I hear and witness the frustration more at that level.” An Administrator speaking about their experiences with year round schooling.” It can actually hurt students' learning because this method of schooling forces many teachers and administrators to work for very long periods of time throughout the school year, causing them to “burn-out” or lose enthusiasm for teaching, therefore the information taught to students is delivered worse than a typical school system.

Evidence has shown that even counties who have implemented year round schol have not seen any significant results in students acedemic success.  “‘We are not seeing our year-round schools outperforming those on traditional calendars,’ declares Michael Evans, chief communications officer in the Wake County (N.C.) Public School System (WCPSS).”  Many Schools main reason for switching to year round schooling is to improve test scores and the quality of education that students recieve, but schools that have switched to year round schooling have shown that the scores do not improve after switching. Students are naturally going to need to be reminded of what they learned after breaks from school no matter how long they are out of school for, so forcing these short breaks on students and staff will only hurt them in the long run. "excessive absences" by students and reports by principals and teachers that "proficient students felt stigmatized by the mandatory additional time, which was viewed as punishment rather than enforcement."Marta Perez, vice chair of the district's board of education of Miami-Dade County Florida. Students and teachers see year round schooling as a punishment, they think it is because they are doing something wrong or have not performed as well as they should have. This creates a negative environment for learning in schools, resulting in many absences among students and staff during the school year.

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