Initial Perceptions of an Alternate School Year Pilot

Philip E. Anton

The structure of the school year is a controversial topic in the province. Proposals for change will affect teaching and learning in our schools.

E.D. Feehan High School in Saskatoon has been carrying out a pilot study for an alternate school year. The pilot study began in fall 1994 and will conclude in June 1996. The school year being piloted begins in mid-August, and ends in mid-June. The first semester finishes just before the Christmas break, and incorporates a school day of approximately 10 more minutes.

The purpose of the study was to determine initial perceptions of the alternate school year experiment, as viewed by school administrators, teachers, students and parents. The study was carried out in the first year of the pilot, and was part of the teacher-researcher's thesis for his Master's degree in Education.

The researcher administered a questionnaire to members of four constituent groups: school administrators, teachers, students, and parents of students. The questionnaire was filled in by the respondents, and consisted of about 150 opinion questions related to the pilot study. It used a Likert scale (from strongly agree to strongly agree, coded as 1 to 5) to measure the responses, and summarized them with a mean score and its standard deviation.

Findings include the following conclusions:

• The evidence collected clearly indicates that each constituent group strongly supports the changes made to the school year as exhibited in the pilot project and do not want to see the school year returned to its traditional form. All four groups very strongly believe that the new school year structure reduces the amount of academic learning loss of students due to the fact that final exams are written before the Christmas holiday period, and that it provides students with an opportunity for a new beginning to their education in Semester Two, after the break.
• Groups support the pilot school structure also because of the design of the summer holiday period, beginning in June and ending in August. They support the 2-month time period for students and staff to be away from school so they can rest and pursue other areas of interest. Students feel particularly strong about having the opportunity to be on summer holidays during the month of June, when the number of daylight hours are maximized and be back in school in August, when the number is somewhat reduced. It was also noted that daytime temperatures are generally higher in June than in August.
• All groups also perceive the pilot school structure to have advantages with respect to summer employment for students, believing that employers would like to hire their full-time summer student help earlier than the end of June. Grade 12 graduates going on to post-secondary education would also have one more month to earn income.
• All groups believe that the school year should have days at the end of the first semester where administrative work is completed related to the first semester and where no student instruction occurs. As well, all groups, with the exception of parents, believe that a school year should have start-up days at the beginning where no student instruction occurs.
• None of the four constituent groups want the school year to be lengthened. No substantial support was found for either lengthening the school year by either adding days or adding minutes per day. There was also little support, with the exception of the student group, for shortening the school year by deleting days or deleting minutes per day. Administrators, teachers and parents believe that the length of both the Christmas holiday and spring break are satisfactory. Students, however, would like to see these lengthened.
• All groups support the existing flexibility within the Education Act so that local school boards can design and implement a school year that meets local needs. Parents believe, however, that boards of education should have to request the approval of the Minister of Education for implementation of newly designed school years, while other groups do not believe this is necessary.
• All four constituent groups strongly support providing the opportunity for staff to provide input that would be used to help develop an evaluation of the pilot year. Teachers do not believe that the changes that result from the pilot will impinge upon their ability to finish teaching the curriculum by the end of the term or that they will feel more stress about completing the curriculum than in a traditional year. From a professional perspective, all four constituent groups agree that the changes will impact on the inservice and professional upgrading of staff, and that it is quite important that the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation and other local associations support the pilot.

The researcher points out that this study took place in the early phases of the pilot and reminds the reader that these are initial perceptions only. He suggests that another study be completed at the end of the two year pilot to assess whether the initial perceptions have been sustained.