Jennifer Matthews-Howell

Susan Heberle looks over documents arguing against the Concept 6 year-round schedule.

The debate surrounding Concept 6

Does the year-round program help or hurt the success of education?

By Julie Z. Giese
News-Sentinel staff writer

Lodi educator Susan Heberle has railed against Lodi Unified School District’s type of year-round program, known as Concept 6, for more than a decade.

She’s claimed the shortened school year hurt students, leaving first-grade students short almost a year of school by the time they reach high school.

The year-round calendar has crippled a generation of students, Heberle said.

Heberle, a Tokay High School science teacher, may now be vindicated.

History of Year-round Education in the Lodi Unified School District 1981 — Advisory committees determines that a year-round calendar is not needed at the time. 1981-85 — Double sessions and busing begin at the high schools. 1984-89 — Lodi and Tokay high schools begin extended day sessions. 1985 — Heritage Elementary School parents and staff request the district adopt a 90/30 year-round calendar to avoid busing. On the 90/30 calendar, students attend class for 18 weeks, then have six weeks off for vacation. 1986 — Creekside Elementary School opens in north Stockton on the 90/30 calendar. An advisory committee recommends a 60/20 calendar — where students would attend class for 12 weeks, then have a month off — be used for elementary schools. 1987 — Clairmont, Oakwood and Parklane elementary schools are placed on the 60/20 calendar. A high school advisory committee recommends Concept 6 calendar be used at the middle and high school level, beginning in July 1989. 1988 — Elkhorn, Lakewood, Nichols, Reese, Davis and Vinewood elementary schools are placed on a 60/20 calendar. An advisory committee recommends that Lawrence, Live Oak and Washington elementary schools be placed on Concept 6 in July 1989, and to convert the existing year-round elementary schools to Concept 6 in 1990. 1989 — Concept 6 calendar begins for Lawrence, Live Oak and Washington elementary schools and the district’s middle and high schools. 1990 — Beckman and Wagner Holt elementary schools opens on Concept 6. All other year-round elementary schools are converted to Concept 6. 1991 — Lodi and Tokay high schools return to a modified traditional calendar with the opening of Bear Creek High School in north Stockton. Westwood Elementary School in north Stockton opens on Concept 6. 1992 — Sutherland Elementary School opens on Concept 6. 1994 — John Muir Elementary School opens on Concept 6.

District officials are looking closer at the calendar after statewide test scores have lagged behind other districts in the state.

Concept 6 has also come under scrutiny by the Los Angeles Unified School District, the only other district in the state to widely use the calendar, to determine how it affects student achievement.

Worries over school academics were the reason Hesperia Unified School District, a 15,000-student district in Southern California, moved off Concept 6.

Concept 6 provides fewer school days than most year-round schedules, and longer breaks, typically two months. Critics claim the breaks are simply too long — that knowledge and continuity are lost.

Ironically, some districts are embracing year-round calendars for academic reasons, feeling the shorter vacation breaks provide more consistency.

But no one is adopting the Concept 6 schedule.

How much does the calendar hinder student achievement?

It’s a giant hurdle, according to Heberle.

Concept 6 evolution

From the start, Concept 6 was adopted for pragmatic, not academic reasons.

As enrollment grew in Lodi and north Stockton schools in the 1980s, Lodi Unified officials started using several year-round calendars to solve the classroom crunch.

The first school to convert to a year-round calendar was Lodi’s Heritage Elementary School in 1985. Students attended class for 18 weeks, then took six weeks off on the 90/30 school-day calendar.

In the next few years, several other schools would be added to other calendars.

The district was soon using several different calendars: 90/30, 60/20, modified traditional and traditional.

A district advisory committee began researching ways to simplify the chaotic schedules in the district.

The solution: Change the district schools to one calendar.

In 1989, Lodi Unified switched to Concept 6 at Lodi and Tokay high schools, four middle schools and three Lodi elementary schools.

A year later, most Lodi and Stockton elementary schools were placed on the calendar with little understanding on how it would affect school academics.

Concept 6 was chosen not for educational reasons, said Bev Lacy, a retired Lodi Unified administrator.

The calendar was needed because of school overcrowding, Lacy said. It was also chosen so families could have a common calendar and blocks of vacation time together.

Increased classroom space was the main reason Concept 6 was created, said Don Glines, co-founder of the San Diego-based National Association of Year-Round Education.

Concept 6 was developed in Colorado to accommodate a growing school district in Jefferson County in the early 1970s, Glines said.

The calendar was named for its six eight-week blocks of school which the calendar is divided into, Glines said.

The 163-day calendar operates year-round with three rotating tracks. Students attend school for four months, then take two months of vacation.

The calendar allows 50 percent more classroom space at a school by having a third of students on vacation at one time.

Students receive 17 less days in the classroom compared to the typical 180-day school calendar.

The shortened school year is compensated for by having slightly longer school days.

The calendar proved to be a disaster at the high schools, Heberle said.

Trying to make all classes available to students on the three tracks were expensive and nearly impossible, she said.

The opening of Bear Creek High School in north Stockton in 1992 allowed the district to return the high schools to the quasi-traditional calendar, which runs from August to June.

But the elementary schools remained on Concept 6.

“That was the first big mistake,” Heberle said.

Calendar woes

Heberle argues that the district should have never left the elementary and middle schools on the Concept 6 calendar.

The calendar continued to be used because of convenience for families and school staff, rather than educational reasons, she said.

But easing overcrowded schools was always the prevailing reason for using Concept 6, Lacy said.

“We did the best we could with what we knew in trying to find more room for kids,” she said.

Anne Cecchetti, Lodi Unified’s year-round coordinator, said the district also used Concept 6 because of continued student growth.

“One thing we never wanted to do was to go off Concept 6 onto another calendar, then have to go back,” Cecchetti said.

Lodi Unified still has 23 elementary and middle schools using the calendar.

Few California school districts still use the calendar other than L.A. Unified, the state’s largest school district, and Lodi Unified.

Currently, some 238 schools use Concept 6, said Tom Payne, a state Department of Education consultant.

Glines, who works as a consultant on year-round education, said the calendar isn’t the issue; the concern should be on how educators use the time in the classroom.

He argues that students on year-round calendars perform equal to or better than students on traditional calendars.

However, Glines said the calendar has its shortfalls, particularly the two two-month long vacations.

“Six weeks should be the maximum time away from school, otherwise it breaks up the continuity of learning,” he said.

State officials have yet to take a hard look at how year-round calendars, including Concept 6, affect student achievement.

Out of curiosity, Payne said he looked at the lowest API scores in the state.

Of 200 schools at the bottom of the API, 112 schools operate on a multitrack year-round calendar. More than half of the year-round schools use the Concept 6 calendar, he said.

Payne cautioned against entirely blaming the calendar, explaining that socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, play into poor academics.

Concept 6 isn’t chosen by districts for educational reasons, said Marilyn Stenvall, executive director of the National Association for Year-Round Education.

“We’re not talking about preference,” Stenvall said. “If schools need the classroom space, Concept 6 ... provides the most room.”

Stenvall said the calendar is still better than double sessions or extended-day classes.

“It isn’t the calendar of choice, but not having enough classrooms for kids isn’t by choice either,” she said.

Severe school overcrowding is what forced L.A. Unified to begin using the Concept 6 calendar in 1980, said Gordon Wohlers, associate superintendent of planning, assessment and research.

The district is now studying how the year-round calendar affects student achievement, including whether disparities exist between tracks.

L.A. Unified officials hope to eventually put the schools back on a traditional calendar, he said.

“Based on educational theories, 180 days is better than 163 days,” Wohlers said.

But adding more days in the classroom won’t happen for some time as L.A. Unified is still experiencing areas of growth, he added.

Time to teach

Heberle has lobbied Lodi Unified officials for the last decade to abolish the calendar she calls “educationally inferior.”

“Concept 6 has double negative impact. Not only are there not enough days, but there are too long of breaks,” she said.

In 1993, a committee of Lodi Unified teachers presented its case against Concept 6 at a school board meeting.

The committee urged the district to abandon the calendar because of its shortened calendar and long vacation breaks.

The teachers said students needed more time in the classroom to be academically successful. They backed their gripes up with experience from the classroom.

Limited research exists on the how year-round calendars, particularly Concept 6, affect student learning.

In 1994, the National Commission on Time and Learning produced a report for the U.S. Department of Education called “Prisoners of Time.”

The report examined the typical American school calendar of 180 six-hour days. It stated the calendar hasn’t kept pace with changes from agrarian and industrial past to a modern society.

Further, reform to hold all students to the same standards has been stymied by the limited time in the classroom, according to the report.

The report called for giving students more time to learn.

Harris Cooper, psychology department chairman at the University of Missouri, said additional days can help improve education.

Copper, who has researched summer school programs and alternative school calendars, found 20 or more additional days and changes to school curriculum can have a significant impact on learning.

Research indicates adding only a few days has little impact, he said.

He’s also looked at the loss of learning during typical three-month summer vacations.

In a survey of research, Cooper found that students can lose several months of learning during summer breaks.

He also found that learning loss was greater in math than reading and the long vacation further increases disparities in reading scores between poor and more affluent students.

Despite the little research on Concept 6, educators in Hesperia Unified know the calendar has faults.

Hesperia Unified, located in the High Desert east of Los Angeles, used the Concept 6 calendar for 12 years because of severe overcrowding, said Superintendent Dick Bray.

“We knew it wasn’t the best, but we made it work,” Bray said.

The district has finally abandoned using the calendar, he said. It converted 11 elementary schools back to a traditional calendar this school year. About $880,000 was spent to purchase several dozens of portable classrooms to make the switch.

Bray said the move was needed to compete in the state’s high-stakes accountability climate.

“The biggest drawback of Concept 6 is you can only get 163 school days,” he said. “That means there are 17 less morning lessons.”

Hesperia Unified has a $35 million school bond on the ballot for June. If the bond isn’t successful, the district may have to return to a year-round calendar in the future, Bray said.

District officials anticipate the added days will boost student achievement.

“We expect better things,” Bray said. “We can’t wait to see our test scores this year.”

Lodi Unified officials admit the year-round calendar isn’t the best for children.

“It really affects learning,” Superintendent Bill Huyett said. “Adding a half-hour doesn’t compensate for the lost days.”

The district formed a committee of parents and teachers last month to study four-track calendars, Cecchetti said.

The committee eventually will recommend to the school board a four-track calendar, which could be used in Lodi Unified, she said.

The district hasn’t set a date on when a new calendar might be adopted or even which schools would make the switch, Cecchetti added.

Undoing the calendar

Lodi Unified has taken steps to convert two year-round schools — Lodi Middle School and Sutherland Elementary School — back to a more traditional calendar in August.

But it’s not going to be easy, Huyett said.

The district will need to add up to eight portable classrooms to Lodi Middle to make the switch while Sutherland will make do with its current number of classrooms.

For most Lodi Unified schools, the conversion won’t be that simple, officials said.

The district has struggled to keep pace with continued student growth and building schools in the last quarter century.

In Lodi, the last new school constructed was Beckman Elementary School, which opened in 1990. Before that, Tokay High School was constructed on Century Boulevard in 1977.

Overcrowding was compounded by a string of failed school bond measures in the last two decades.

The bonds would have built a handful of new schools in the district.

Lodi Unified will attempt passing another school bond on Nov. 6 to solve its classroom crunch.

A proposed $109.3 million bond would fund a fourth high school, two middle schools and four elementary schools.

Huyett said adding masses of portable classrooms isn’t the solution either.

About a third of the district’s classrooms are already portable classrooms, which have become costly to maintain compared to standard buildings.

A successful bond, state construction money and portables are all part of the equation to getting students more days in the classroom, Huyett said.

“The problem is so big, that it’s going to take a long time to make progress on it,” he said.

For Heberle, converting two schools to the more traditional calendar is a step in the right direction.

“We need to build schools and take as many children off the Concept 6 calendar as possible,” she said.

Heberle said she also hopes state leaders eventually ban the use of the calendar because of its learning drawbacks.

“It’s just bad for kids,” she said.