Beecher Schools To Implement Year-Round Calendar

Students in the Beecher Community School District may be doing more counting, but they won't be counting down to the end of the school year. That's because in less than one month, they will transition to a year-round school calendar. The district will implement the new calendar on August 20th, three weeks prior to the traditional post-Labor Day start to the school year. After that, the only knowledge of a summer vacation will come from a history lesson.

Grand Blanc and Davison each have one school that operates on a year-long calendar, but Beecher will be the first school district in Genesee County to implement it in every school. This comes following the school's history of academic weakness. The recent Michigan Merit Exam showed students were just 13% proficient in math, and only 5% proficient in science. While 77% were partially proficient in writing, just a mere 9% were proficient in reading.

The Michigan Department of Education ranked Tucker Elementary and Beecher High School in the bottom 5% in the state for the 2011-12 school year, and the district was looking at a state take over three years ago with one of the worst performing high schools in the state of Michigan.

The executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, William Mayes, said that if there is evidence to show academic improvement with the new calendar, Beecher could be a model for other districts in the state.

Do you think the year-round school year will benefit Beecher students?  Should the calendar be implemented in other Gensee County School Districts?

[The Flint Journal]