WEBVTT 1 00:00:46.580 --> 00:00:51.420 It sits quietly, waiting, an empty shell. 2 00:00:52.620 --> 00:00:54.240 This is an important place. 3 00:00:55.480 --> 00:00:58.300 Young minds are molded into being here. 4 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:07.160 Curiosity, ideas, the rich history of man, the leaf, the poem, the work, and the art. 5 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:11.340 Here they are nurtured and carried away by each child. 6 00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:23.280 Yet this room and almost two million instructional rooms like it are closed for three-fourths of each school day and for the summer months each year. 7 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:44.220 And along with the classrooms, over 50,000 libraries, 25,000 auditoriums, 40,000 cafeterias, 30,000 gymnasiums, thousands of buses, laboratories, audiovisual tools, shops, and special purpose facilities sit and wait. 8 00:01:45.220 --> 00:02:06.800 This $84 billion school plant sits idle for one-third of the school year, while the U.S. government school spending program in the early 70s accelerated at $5,000 per second, $300,000 per hour, $1,800,000 per day. 9 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:12.060 As of this moment, we have 46 million students in school. 10 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:16.940 300,000 are on half-day sessions because of crowded facilities. 11 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:33.780 Without building one new school, a plan conceived in the early 1900s, tested and in use in many areas of our country, would allow immediate expansion for 15 million students, create a new environment for better education, 12 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:41.580 uncrowded facilities, and the last chance to save our overburdened, tradition-ridden educational system. 13 00:02:42.760 --> 00:02:46.660 It's all so simple. It's the year-round school. 14 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:15.420 Scorned by many, understood by few, the year-round school has been tried for many years. 15 00:03:16.880 --> 00:03:20.880 In a number of school districts throughout the country, it is in full swing today. 16 00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:28.620 In others, it was talked about, researched, reported on, reviewed, and all too often, trampled. 17 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:37.180 We recently asked Senator Percy, senior senator from Illinois, about his views on the year-round school. 18 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:42.160 I think there's a basic concept that has to be gotten to. 19 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:57.500 We must essentially look at ourselves as a nation organized today as the most modern and industrial society on earth, but still clinging to the past, still organized as an agricultural society in some respects. 20 00:03:57.500 --> 00:04:04.540 For instance, we organized our school year based on the fact that 90% of the population were farmers. 21 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:08.100 They needed the boys back home to harvest the crops. 22 00:04:08.760 --> 00:04:17.780 So schools operated nine months a year so that the young men and women could be back on the farm harvesting, helping their parents bring the farm crops in. 23 00:04:17.780 --> 00:04:32.940 We are now a nation 5% engaged in agriculture, 95% in other pursuits, but all of our school year is based on the organization structure set up for an agricultural rural nation. 24 00:04:33.400 --> 00:04:44.740 I'm very happy to say that right in my own state of Illinois, the Valley View School District 96, located just 35 miles southwest of Chicago, has had this experiment. 25 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:51.440 Necessity was the mother of invention. They had a population explosion. They had reached the end of their debt limit. 26 00:04:51.620 --> 00:05:00.340 They couldn't raise taxes anymore, and yet they had 7,000 students crowded into a space only available, built for 5,500. 27 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:05.640 What would they do? They then went to what they call the 45-15 plan. 28 00:05:05.640 --> 00:05:17.820 This enabled the students to have a regular schedule. They geographically organized it so that it never had a different schedule for brothers and sisters, so that vacations could be planned. 29 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:25.600 And I think really you should ask the children, the teachers, the school board members, all of the community how they like it. 30 00:05:25.940 --> 00:05:32.320 This isn't theory. This has actually been tried in a community that's typical of many communities across the country. 31 00:05:32.320 --> 00:05:37.780 They have, as Lincoln said, thought anew and acted anew about an old problem. 32 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:51.320 That old problem plagued the Valley View School District for quite a while. Options were few, and the students and parents felt the growing need. So did the administrators and teachers. 33 00:05:52.440 --> 00:06:06.100 Back in the year 1968, Valley View found itself in rather a unique position in that we needed a third more space in our schools, but we had the inability to go and borrow the money for these buildings. 34 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:17.380 The Board of Education had three alternatives to take a look at. Half-day sessions, 60-70 in the classroom, a rescheduled school year. 35 00:06:17.380 --> 00:06:31.080 The people of the community said no to half-day sessions. Of course, teachers said no to 60 or 70 in the classroom. Thus, after about a month of research, the 45-15 plan was born. 36 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:43.720 In the beginning, we did a lot of public relations with our community, explaining what our problem was and our plans for solving that problem, which was our particular form of year-round school that we devised. 37 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:59.660 And I think it should be understood that in a community who thinks enough of their children to pass 21 straight tax rate increases for their children's benefit, that to say the least, they had a good deal of trust in our educational program and our school system. 38 00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:14.460 And I think probably, if I might use the word worst, reaction we had was by and large, well, they haven't hurt us in the past. They have performed for us. I may not like it. I may not quite understand it. 39 00:07:14.780 --> 00:07:27.400 But let's let them go and see what evolves. And I would guess from that time until today that probably we have more than doubled the approval of community reaction to the program. 40 00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:32.140 I would even go so far as to say I doubt whether we could take it away from the community. 41 00:07:43.280 --> 00:07:55.500 These children are in a Valley View year-round school. They attend school for 45 days and are on leave for 15 school days. They also have all normal holidays. 42 00:07:55.500 --> 00:08:06.900 They alternate their time off so that one-fourth of the students are always on holiday for 15 days. When they return, another fourth of the students go, and so on. 43 00:08:08.580 --> 00:08:18.500 Alternate year-round school plans exist, and special community needs may dictate one or another. 45-15 is the system most commonly used. 44 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:33.460 Students on 45-15 can have smaller classes. They can also have special training. They can continue in their chosen sports activity. 45 00:08:35.100 --> 00:08:42.060 And they can start their schooling when they are old enough, at any of four times a year, rather than only once in the fall. 46 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:50.280 Teachers respond to 45-15 for many reasons. 47 00:08:51.620 --> 00:09:01.960 I think the students enjoy being on 45-15 because it's a change in their year. They know that every 45 days they'll have 15 days off, and they enjoy the break. 48 00:09:01.960 --> 00:09:12.020 When they come back to school, we find that they're much more eager to get started again. I think for the teachers who are on the 45-15 plan, there are also benefits. 49 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:24.160 They can use those 15 days to plan, to develop new activities and develop materials. And I really feel that the 45-15 plan has promoted individualization within the district. 50 00:09:24.160 --> 00:09:34.200 Since you have a quarter of your student population coming and going constantly, you must individualize. And the trends in education today are toward individualization. 51 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:45.120 I would think that year-round schools would do a great deal, not only to hold down property taxes, to hold down cost. 52 00:09:45.480 --> 00:10:02.740 With skyrocketing construction cost, it's almost a horror for a school district to realize that the increasing population pouring into the community, being built in the community, is going to require more school buildings at the extraordinarily high cost that we now have. 53 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:16.660 A year-round school would enable us to have smaller classes and enable us to put more money into operating our schools rather than in just bricks and mortar, which contribute relatively little to the child's education. 54 00:10:19.060 --> 00:10:26.920 But the cost of bricks, the mortar, the books, and the teaching equipment continue to plague administrators everywhere. 55 00:10:27.760 --> 00:10:37.460 Year-round schools solve many more problems than they create. Even special needs are not forgotten, because costs can be reduced. 56 00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:55.480 The school building you see behind me is one of four senior high schools presently under construction. Prince William County has undertaken a rather extensive construction program, and this is one school which will be on the year-round school program very shortly. 57 00:10:55.480 --> 00:11:08.540 Presently in Prince William County, we have a 45-15 program, which is a mandatory attendance program. The school board has recently approved the implementation of year-round schools division-wide. 58 00:11:09.160 --> 00:11:15.760 One of the reasons was the fantastic cost problem with respect to construction of new schools. 59 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:25.020 Comparing the year-round school construction cost to the conventional school construction cost will save $40 million between now and 1980. 60 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:40.840 The analysis of costs between 1959 and 1980, where Prince William County public schools would have been on year-round, would have produced a $90 million savings in approximately a 20-year period of time. 61 00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:51.260 An extensive analysis of operational costs in the year-round schools compared to conventional schools indicated a 9.6% saving on the middle school level. 62 00:11:52.280 --> 00:12:00.660 The saving breakdown was 4.9% in the personnel area and 4.7% in the facility and equipment area. 63 00:12:00.660 --> 00:12:19.700 If we were looking at the actual cost benefit to a division and we use the 9.6 as a base, in the Godwin Middle School in Prince William County, we saved $109.46 per child per year under year-round school compared to the conventional program. 64 00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:40.660 It has been said that the year-round school program could be more easily adopted if the vacation problem were eliminated. 65 00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:49.020 Vacations and summertime seem ideally suited. It is amazing how universal that thought seems to be. 66 00:12:49.420 --> 00:12:55.980 But why do we all have to compete for the same simple pleasures in the same places at the same time? 67 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:39.460 In year-round school, only one-fourth of the students are on holiday at one time. 68 00:13:40.380 --> 00:13:46.280 They have their vacations four times a year, three weeks at a time, plus all regular holidays too. 69 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:51.140 They can visit the local zoo or travel to Europe or Mexico. 70 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:57.240 They can ski in the winter, go sailing in the spring, fishing and camping in the late fall. 71 00:13:58.060 --> 00:14:04.140 Where in the world can they go? Anywhere. What can they do? Anything. 72 00:14:05.300 --> 00:14:09.900 Especially when only one-fourth of them want to do it at the same time. 73 00:14:23.880 --> 00:14:31.920 Year-round school exists in many parts of the country, sometimes on a permanent basis, often on a trial basis. 74 00:14:32.640 --> 00:14:37.140 The San Diego schools are into a 45-15 program of some magnitude. 75 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:46.820 We went into this plan because we're experiencing in our city tremendous growth in the outskirts of the city, in the suburban areas. 76 00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:54.440 And we have not been able, under California law, to get an approved bond issue with a required two-thirds vote. 77 00:14:55.280 --> 00:15:03.900 So we faced the problem. If we're going to house youngsters, we're either going to have to transport them to schools in the central part of the city where we do have some capacity. 78 00:15:03.900 --> 00:15:16.300 Or we're going to have to go on double sessions, or we're going to have to pass a bond issue, or we'll go on another system for better utilization of the facilities we have. 79 00:15:17.380 --> 00:15:29.380 Our 45-15 plan in six schools saved us the equivalent of having to build a new elementary school because we can house approximately 10 to 15 percent more in the same facilities by having a staggered shift of youngsters. 80 00:15:30.040 --> 00:15:37.220 We've been now in the 45-15 plan for about eight months. Our experience has been pretty positive. 81 00:15:37.880 --> 00:15:47.540 Now in terms of student achievement, we feel at this time, however, with the preliminary results that students are achieving as well, or maybe a little better, than under the traditional program. 82 00:15:48.140 --> 00:15:52.020 Student absenteeism is down as much as 25 percent in several schools. 83 00:15:52.020 --> 00:16:00.680 The absentee rate of teachers has gone down considerably, and maybe that's because of the fact that you do have a period to get some rest and rehabilitation. 84 00:16:01.360 --> 00:16:17.140 I'm a parent of two children enrolled here at Curie School. I'm also serve as chairman of a Citizens Advisory Committee, which is a committee set up by our school district to help further communication between the community and the schools. 85 00:16:17.140 --> 00:16:23.820 I personally have found it very beneficial for my children. We feel that the continuity is much better. 86 00:16:24.140 --> 00:16:30.140 Right now I'm involved in helping with an intersession program, which is a miniature summer school program. 87 00:16:30.300 --> 00:16:38.900 In essence, it's the time the children who are off for a three-week period choose to come back and take extracurricular activity in the form of an intersession. 88 00:16:39.420 --> 00:16:46.540 And it's amazing to me, these children have been in school for nine weeks, and you think they'd want to be home watching television or making mud pies, but they're in foods. 89 00:16:46.540 --> 00:16:56.960 They're back in the classroom at 8.30 this morning, raring to go, and they're not doing just all art projects. They're doing their math and their phonics and their regular educational program. 90 00:17:00.760 --> 00:17:08.800 What are the real benefits in year-round schools for the teacher? Extra wages? Retirement benefits? More. 91 00:17:09.360 --> 00:17:15.900 It's also the contact with eager, curious young minds, searching, finding, learning. 92 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:25.120 The arena of the school room where the student and the teacher meet in work is always the final moment of truth for the school system. 93 00:17:26.780 --> 00:17:37.960 I can recall so vividly as a teacher coming out after having worked so hard for the degree and so on, and you put in your nine months of teaching, and then all of a sudden there you were confronted. 94 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:45.980 With a three-month layoff. Financially you couldn't afford it, especially if you were married and had family obligations. 95 00:17:46.580 --> 00:17:55.960 And so you had to go out and you had to take any type of work that you could possibly take in order to bring in the necessary finances for you to live through the summer. 96 00:17:55.960 --> 00:18:08.520 And well I can remember for one summer I worked at the sanitary district and used to clean the rakes that used to go down and drudge the river. 97 00:18:10.180 --> 00:18:22.060 Another summer I sold sporting goods, worked out on construction crews. And it was a very frustrating thing because of course I wanted to be working at the thing that I was trained for, at my profession. 98 00:18:22.060 --> 00:18:29.240 The children can hardly wait to come back, but I do find something I was afraid of hasn't really happened. 99 00:18:29.340 --> 00:18:37.240 I was afraid that before a vacation we would lose a lot of teaching time by the children getting too excited like they usually do. 100 00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:47.860 Every day I am so glad to see those children come to school. And every day they are so glad to come. We are just tickled to see each other. 101 00:18:47.860 --> 00:18:59.040 And on regular school we do get periods where both the children and myself do get pretty tired. And we don't have that on year-round school. We are always glad to be here. 102 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:13.060 In taking a look at our present salary schedule at Valley View, we decided to divide the traditional 180-day contract into the salary schedule to come up with a per diem pay rate. 103 00:19:13.060 --> 00:19:22.900 Now you know for a number of years teachers have been bemoaning the fact that they need a salary to live for a full year. 104 00:19:23.540 --> 00:19:33.780 By paying on a per diem rate at Valley View, we afford teachers the opportunity to work more than 180 days. The maximum contract is 240 days. 105 00:19:34.860 --> 00:19:40.760 At Valley View we have over 50% of our staff choosing to work more than 180 days. 106 00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:51.940 I don't think any other profession could stand to let their professional staff go for three months during the summer. What would the hospitals do? What about the dentists? 107 00:19:52.420 --> 00:20:00.180 What if your attorneys were not available to give you counsel for three months during the summer? Personally I feel it's a waste of talent. 108 00:20:00.180 --> 00:20:12.940 At Valley View today, the professional staff in our district who chooses to work a full year can start out at $12,000. Meaning a bachelor's degree and no experience. 109 00:20:13.660 --> 00:20:26.020 The top of our salary schedule for full year work is right almost at $26,000. Now I ask the question, are we now competing with business and industry? 110 00:20:26.020 --> 00:20:34.120 My only regret is that 45-15 didn't start about 30 or 40 years ago. 111 00:20:35.780 --> 00:20:44.180 An overwhelming percentage of the students on year-round school enjoy it. They can enjoy the freedom of this new approach for many reasons. 112 00:20:44.180 --> 00:20:57.960 Along with the many advantages, service groups like YMCA, the Boys Clubs of America, Junior Achievement could also lighten their peak summer loads and develop programs all year round. 113 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:04.360 The question still kept arising, what about jobs for kids during the summer? 114 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:13.560 Quite truthfully, we knew that there weren't jobs for all of the high school students in the summer in the past. We actually have gone into the employment business. 115 00:21:14.280 --> 00:21:21.500 We have an individual that serves as a representative between our Board of Education and local business and industry. 116 00:21:21.500 --> 00:21:34.280 We have worked with people in the community and today I can say that our employment rate has increased drastically due to 45-15. 117 00:21:35.320 --> 00:21:46.040 Now students can work 15 days when they're out of school. An employer who has a full-time job opening, it can now be served by four students on each track. 118 00:21:46.040 --> 00:22:00.700 It was only a few months ago that we received a report from our so-called employment agency that we had more jobs available for students in Valley View than what we had students willing to work at. 119 00:22:02.500 --> 00:22:08.760 The need for part-time employment by many students is both urgent and a growing requirement. 120 00:22:10.120 --> 00:22:13.680 The dignity of a part-time job should be shared by all. 121 00:22:14.980 --> 00:22:20.960 And the rejections increase as employers are pressed by an abundance of summer applicants. 122 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:32.540 Seasonal needs by many industries call for year-round employment of young people who are needed, who need the work, who need the training and the lift of being accepted. 123 00:22:34.100 --> 00:22:42.900 Certainly, higher education for instance, the President has said no child should lack for a higher education because of financial necessities or needs. 124 00:22:43.300 --> 00:22:49.900 I worry a great deal about what happens to the cities in the summer. We all worry. We've seen them up in flames. 125 00:22:49.900 --> 00:23:01.820 A great deal of that dissatisfaction in Chicago and the streets of East St. Louis when we have particularly minority young people out of work and idle in the hot summer. 126 00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:07.960 It's the idleness that causes trouble, the feeling that they're not needed or wanted. They can't get a job. 127 00:23:08.420 --> 00:23:15.640 Where suddenly in our private sector or public sector do we provide jobs for 16 million students all at once? 128 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:28.840 But we could provide jobs for several million periodically four times a year and have teams of people available to go tandem on a job and off a job as they go back into school. 129 00:23:29.140 --> 00:23:38.560 This would help us and it would save us millions of dollars of tax money for jobs we make and create just to provide activity for the summer. 130 00:23:38.560 --> 00:23:48.380 Let's think about it. Let's not just try to drown this problem in dollars and pour money in on it. Let's use our heads. Change our habits a little bit. 131 00:23:48.600 --> 00:24:00.720 We may find that the change of habit has enriched our lives, reduced our cost and made the quality of life a great deal better in America for students, for parents and for teachers. 132 00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:17.180 From the beginning, schools closed for the summer. Students dropped their learning, their school books, pencils and scratchy pens to work in the fields. 133 00:24:18.580 --> 00:24:28.800 The summer period was not a vacation. It was the time to work, sow, reap, to help the family harvest the grain, fatten the calf. 134 00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:36.220 Our children today have new, unplowed fields to furrow, to plant, new flowers to grow. 135 00:24:37.780 --> 00:24:56.160 These are the fields of the new sciences, the intense new arts, the skills of technicians, deep concerns with the atom, the moon, the universe and with blood chemistry, with communication, with the computer, with light and sound. 136 00:24:57.660 --> 00:25:15.400 The educational structure must be geared to meet the future now. Year-round schools make such good sense. Why waste time? Ars longa, vita vivus. Art is long, but life is short.