I have never experienced year round schooling, here in a rural area of MO. There are some schools around here that do. I am really not for it, nor can say that I'm against it, because, if it betters my children's education, then, I would be all for it.
However...here in MO, even on the news this morning... a school closer to the St. Louis area schools, used the issue of "making their school a year-round school...if they did not get their bond issue past by voters, in this upcoming election". I think year-round schooling, to me at least, seems like a tactic used to "bully" voters into voting for what the school wants OR ELSE. And it should not be like that, but it is seen that way here.
Our school tried worse tactics, years ago...after resorting to "moving in" actual trailers for our children to be taught in, due to lack of space...and voters still not passing school related issues, I was included on voting it down as well. (Did end up loosing lots of $$$ on those trailers when the school decided to have the trailers sent back, before the proposed leased time (3 yrs....only kept two), and only sent back, after the bond issues were rejected by more of an 80% vote casted, against their new bond issues, twice. Why not ask the voters what it is that they do not like, and compromise, but?...not how our district works. The residence of our county, myself included, were tired of the waste that was seen in how our tax dollars were being spent. Teachers were not given hardly any $$$ in raises, yet, administration staff was "reaping in our $$$ more and more each year! Buildings were being built w/vaulted ceilings, three stories high that looked more like an "open-mall", then a school, which could have been "filled in and could have gained quite a few more classrooms, for upcoming growth. Buildings were also being built just a few years earlier w/ voters approval, yet, in a two year span...were not "big enough" to house three grades in, nor were they built to where they could be expanded, and our district wanted to just "scrap" the entire buildings and relocate the entire buildings, and leaving those buildings to be left vacant, in hopes that someone may want to buy them!
The worst tactic that our school did use to "try" and ensure that they would get what they wanted in more bond issues passed to build more mall-like schools and increase adminstrative staff pay, was to enforce double sessions on our kids...high school kids went from 6 am-2pm...jr high kids went in the afternoons 2pm and evenings 8 pm...all elem.went from 8 am-3pm. Voters, like myself did vote down the very next few issues, in retaliation of what they were pulling, and did win on this. We had enough! If they did not want to compromise, then be prepared for every bond issue to fail after this last one, unless you ready to compromise! The school did stop the double sessions, after a few years....but we were threatened w/ year-round schooling, next. (If you had to use double sessions to house as many kids as we had...how was year-round schooling going to work? Just a threat and we knew this!!!)
All of this was remedied when our county voted in "new" faces into our school board...as was what we needed to do! Then, needed and reasonable issues that our school district needed from this point on, where generally passed. We never saw year-round schooling here, but I would not say that we won't. Our school actually pays students to attend our summer school program....school must be making the $$$$ to give each kid $100.00+ per summer...to offer such! Today, our children are forbiden from weekly "fun-stuff" if they even miss one day that week. Our district seems to put so much pressure on parents to send their sick children to school, that our own nurses in our district have said that she is seeing more illnesses, then before! Why?..our district comes right out and tells us in monthly letters that when your child are absent a day they lose $$$$...not really worrying about the kids or education lost, but the $$$!!!! Yet, our district, has not passed state testings in over 3 yrs., and scores have actually fallen on them...putting our district in the "needs to improve" ranking!!!! I assume our current board has now seen its' time to leave too!!!! They decided to give our superintendant more $$$$$ this year, making him one of the higher paid supers in MO./and for the amount of students in our district, it is crazy to rank him up there w/ supers whose districts house 10000 more students than himself.....TEACHERS were not even offered more $$$$ at that time!!!!...only the super was...can you believe this? We taxpayers, along w/ teachers, did have something to say about this. Teachers did get offered 6% per year to start, increase in their pay...finally, after super got his huge cut!
I do hope that you all are in a district that does care for the education of your children...whether it be year-round schooling or not. We, here do not get this! Even during past board meetings...NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO ADDRESS THE BOARD W/O PERMISSION FROM THEM...if you were against their ideas, you were just wasting your time trying to talk to them. This of course, was eliminated when the state decided to end this practice, this year, and expects our district to start listening to its taxpayers-parents-teachers-community.
WORSE?... Our school, presently, does not even have to bring up any more bond issues....apparently, in the "fine lines" of another voted-in item of old, our own tax assessment office, can, during slumping economic times, w/ house values down... raise our property values, for our school district, when they choose to. Did this this year!! Out of $1300 we paid last year for property taxes...$700+ went to our school! (Ambulance got $30...fire dept alittle more...public library got a few dollars!) This year they have increased it, stating that the increase was for our school which lost $$ due to general revenues being down, yet, my actual home value has dropped at least $10000-20000!!! And, so we aren't spending more at local stores as we were able to before. Should this mean our county should take what little we have out of our hands, and give it to the schools, by taxing us more, when my home is not worth their current value?

Yet...there has been rumored talk of year-round schooling, to allow the school to draw more of that state $$$$ they think they need, since economic times have started to "dry up" some of our local funding they were accustomed to. (and this is not intended for the education of our children....but for a NEW BUILDINGS!!!! If it were the education of my children, we wouldn't be on the "need to improve" state list, I think.)
Year-round schooling talk, in our part of this great country is used moreso by our school district as a threat. It is not seen as something favored here. To bring up year-round schooling here would only be seen as something of a threat, instead of addressing our problems we face in passing state testings, that we were able to do for many years, before the emphasis was placed moreso on fancy new buildings.

I know you were the 'someone' I just didn't want to start the discussion by naming names. I know where in Arizona we are still testing the waters with year round school. I know it doesn't fit everyone, and I think that an entire district should try it not just some schools. To me, the length of the typical school period (forty-five to fifty minutes), the school day (8 A.M. to 3 P.M.), and the school year (180 days) is too rigid across the nation. Here in Arizona-no one wants outside in the summer! The idea of more time off in the cooler months...that's a holiday to me. That's too bad it was such a nightmare for you and yours.

:::waves hand and says "Hi, I'm 'someone' who said year round education is awful." Often people will say, "Don't knock it until you try it."

Well, we have, and I would home school, unschool, or move before I'd ever do year round again. Hands down, the inequity of the teaching on different tracks was a nightmare. Often in our area, children put on the least desirable track were given whatever left over courses they could find someone to teach. There were fewer AP and other good courses. Students wanting desirable summer camps and internships had to forgo college enhancing programs because the scheduled months off of, say, October and November were useless to most enrichment programs.

People with children in different schools found that they couldn't take a simple vacation because the kids were all on different tracks. Police found it hard to curb truancy because kids were on the streets at different times of the year, and some kids were always out.

Students who miss a day of school miss more than a day of school because more time was added on to each school day.

Summer day camps that thrive on college student "counselors" can not find enough staff, so finding adequate supervision in the off months is challenging, and children end up unsupervised, leading to delinquency.

Students matriculating from one school to another may find they have less than a month to unwind or might end up with 4 months off before starting the next school.

The proof for me is that in the last few years, LAUSD has systematically gotten rid of year round schools.

If anyone wants to experiment with year round schools, I'll give you the name of the last few schools in this area, and you're more than welcome to experiment with your kids, but I wouldn't advise it.