In 2013, the Board of Education and central office for North Kansas City School District decided that two North Kansas City schools would be piloting year round schooling sessions. The two schools that were chosen are specific to the elementary school level; Crestview Elementary and Winnwood Elementary. The projected goals are to have more solid, foundational understandings of academics while students are still in early ages of school.

Winnwood Elementary principal, Dr. Leah Martisko, explained that “the focus for this transition was to provide a high quality education for our students for a longer period of time.”

“Research has shown that many of our students lose some of what they have learned [throughout the school year] when they are off for the summer,” Martisko said.

Crestview Elementary principal, Deyrel Wallace, further explained that, “our ultimate goal is to put an end to the “summer slump.”  Typically, students can regress up to three months in their reading levels over the summer.”

“If you look at this in terms of instruction, [August through November] will be spent trying to get [students] back up to [the] levels they reached in May. This is a loss of nearly three month from learning new material,” said Wallace.

Thus, the response to this “regression” in learning was to create the modified calendar. In short, elementary level students have identical calendars with the North Kansas City School District until they resume school on June 10, 2015, beginning the modified calendar. After the tenth, students have smaller durations of time in which they attend school, followed by breaks, and then back to school.

“Teachers and students have had the opportunity to opt out of the Modified Calendar if this did not fit their families’ schedule or priorities,” explained Crestview Elementary principal, Deyrel Wallace. “Since this is such a big shift in how we have always operated, it was important that we were sensitive to the needs of others,” he said.

“Our end goal,” Martisko continued, “is higher levels of achievement and deeper levels of understanding for our students on grade level concepts and experiences.” A full year session of school would be constant exposure to foundational information for students, with available assistance that would help develop further understanding, keeping the material prevalent.

“With the additional days, we will not be adding additional curriculum but instead, we will be going “deeper” in the content that currently exists,” explained Wallace.

Regardless of these goals, there are other benefits in addition to preventing student learning regression, being more development with student behavior, and also, more accommodations with student health.

Wallace commented that, “[schools] will still have wrap-around services ranging from BackSnack, tutoring, and free breakfast for all. We are also going to look at expanding our extracurricular opportunities.”

Spending more time in school grants young students the opportunity to have more constant availability to resources. These resources include specialized fields of work, such as counseling. Other adult figures would also be available to students, all of which could give a student guidance or counseling, if such mentoring was needed. This opportunity from the modified calendar has the potential to further assist in the overall development of student behavior.

The modified calendar also offers more opportunities for structured meals for students. While attending school, students have the opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch at set, specific times in the day. Also, with programs such as Free and Reduced lunch, there are less complications that students may have to face, allowing them to receive the help and assistance that they may need. Other outlets of aid, such as the Backpack program, may benefit students as well, and also for longer periods of time throughout their schooling because of the modified calendar.

Angela Kirkland, Winnwood Elementary administrative assistant, agreed with the possible benefits of the modified calendar. “Hopefully the impact will be better for them,” said Kirkland. “I think that it can positively impact the students’ health and well-being.”

Aside from the possible benefits, high school students have not been in favor of implementing a modified calendar, even on a pilot elementary level. Junior Stephanie McCormack believes that it will take away from aspects of their development.

“They would lack that social vacationing [experience],” said McCormack. “I wouldn’t have been able to go to Europe, and that experience gave me a world wide perspective, which especially [applied] to the IB program.”

Although currently only implemented on the elementary level, modified calendars are still only in pilot schools. The fate of the modified calendar has yet to bedecided, and will be evaluated by the Board of Education and the central office for North Kansas City Schools after concluding the pilot term.

“We are thankful for the support of the district, families and staff that are committed to making the Modified Calendar a success,” said Wallace, “it will truly be a team effort and we are all in this together. It’s for the kids, and we will do “whatever it takes” to meet the needs of our students!”