School Split on Result of Year-Round Schedule : Education: Some parents and teachers at Fillmore High say the program doesn’t work. Other districts are debating similar plans.

Completing its third year as the only public high school in Ventura County on a year-round schedule, Fillmore High School is divided over whether the controversial program is a success or a failure.

A year ago, a survey of teachers, students and parents showed that 85% of the respondents were “very positive” about the year-round program, said Supt. David Haney of the Fillmore Unified School District.

“It’s going very smoothly,” Haney said.

But as similar plans are being debated in Oxnard and Ventura, some teachers, parents and students in Fillmore say the year-round school program doesn’t work.

“I hate it,” said Karen Ashim, a part-time business teacher. “The program doesn’t bring academic success. It was sold that way, but we’re not seeing it.”

Although school officials say there are too many variables to make a quantitative judgment about the effectiveness of the year-round schedule, teacher Bruce Dempsey has done his own informal study.

In three years, he said, the grade-point average for his students in history and driver education has gone down 1.5 points.

“If this calendar is working, why are grades dropping?” said Dempsey, who pointed out that the district has the highest dropout rate in the county.

Fillmore is on 10-week quarters, separating them with two-week breaks in the fall and spring and a three-week Christmas vacation. Some teachers say the breaks are disruptive.

“We’ve lost some of the flow and continuity we had before,” English teacher Teresa Giovati said. “We have to gear down and then take a lot of time to gear the students up for school again.”

Senior Margarita Felix thinks there are too many breaks.

“You go on vacation,” she said, “and you forget everything.”

After a six-week summer vacation, school begins at the end of July, then is interrupted for a two-week break in early October, just when “To Kill a Mockingbird” is catching the interest of Giovati’s ninth-grade English class.

“To do justice to a novel, you want to spend a lot of time with it,” she said. “But I found myself being in the middle (of the book) when we went on the break. Then it was awkward to go back to it after the break.”

Fillmore Principal Lynn Johnson conceded that “we do have a strong amount of teachers here who still feel (the year-round schedule) is not the answer to our problems.”

But she added: “The great majority are in favor.”

The strongest dissent has come from Athletic Director Tom Ecklund, who contends that the year-round schedule is hurting athletics, especially athletes and coaches involved in more than one sport.

“We start in August and don’t get much of a break till May or June,” Ecklund said. “We have to practice and play when school is out. Coaches have to be here on their vacation time. The kids get tired.”

But the Fillmore girls’ softball team and boys’ baseball team made the playoffs this season.

“You can’t make a case for the (year-round) program ruining sports,” Haney said.

A benefit of the year-round schedule: Although Fillmore students and teachers are back in school while friends in other districts still have four or five weeks left in their summer vacation, they get off in October, January and March when most everyone else is stuck inside a classroom.

“Faculty members without kids love it,” Ashim said.

So do some parents.

“We go on vacation when it’s not crowded,” said Janet Schrock, whose daughter is in junior high.

But the loss of their three-month summer break is a major irritant to some students, who have asked principal Johnson to add a seventh week.

“I like year-round in a way, but I don’t like it in a way because summer is too short,” said Tricia Arnsdorf, a 15-year-old sophomore.

In California, 58 high schools now have year-round schedules. In Ventura County, a decision on whether to convert Oxnard High to a year-round schedule is expected in October. A month later, Ventura voters will decide on the year-round issue for all schools in the Ventura Unified School District.

“It’s the wave of the future,” said Ralph Mora, assistant principal at San Diego County’s Sweetwater High School, which has one of the most successful year-round programs in the state.

At Oxnard school board meetings, opponents of year-round schools have been using Fillmore’s problems with sports as ammunition against the program. But supporters of year-round schools say comparing Oxnard to Fillmore is an apples-to-oranges situation.

Fillmore has only 870 students versus Oxnard’s 2,134. The schools’ year-round schedules would not be exactly alike: Oxnard High would have nine-week quarters alternating with three-week intersessions.

A more appropriate comparison might be with Sweetwater High, in National City. Comparable to Oxnard High in size and demographics, Sweetwater has fulfilled all the promises of the year-round schedule since adopting the program four years ago. Aside from grade-point averages increasing from 2.0 to 2.5, Mora said, the dropout rate fell from 16% to 5% and athletic teams also have improved.

“Kids and teachers are fresher and there’s an atmosphere of learning taking place,” Mora said.

Sweetwater’s program is so successful, Mora said, that enrollment had to be capped because “students from other schools want to come here.” And starting next fall, he said, Lakeside High School in an affluent area of San Diego County will be copying Sweetwater’s year-round schedule.

Year-round schools also have been getting high marks from the state.

“Two-thirds of the studies show significant positive results,” said Leroy Small, the Department of Education’s statewide consultant on year-round schools.

Although “the program seems to do the same for most kids as the traditional schedule, slower achieving students do better,” he said.

Since the concept began in California about 25 years ago, Small said, year-round schools have always been haunted by misinformation and misconceptions.

“People resist change,” he said.

Mora’s advice to district’s considering year-round schools: “Don’t knock it until you know what it’s about.”