Oklahoma City School Board to consider shorter summers

Board members will vote on a plan to reduce the traditional summer break by a month in the state's largest district, using that time to create a two-week break in October and longer winter and spring breaks.

Already, seven schools in the 40,000-student district are on “continuous learning calendars,” and the district has been talking for more than a year about the benefits of the plan.

“I absolutely love it,” said Anna King, a member of the Parent Teacher Student Association for Douglass Middle High School, which is one of seven schools piloting the continuous learning calendar. “Our kids really need it especially when they come from elementary school and then middle school and they are not reading where they are supposed to be.”

The seven schools using continuous learning calendars are Horace Mann Elementary, Moon Academy Elementary, Sequoyah Elementary, Westwood Elementary, Douglass Middle High, Rogers Middle School and Webster Middle School.

Education experts often bemoan the summer learning doldrums where students regress in academic ability.

Oklahoma City Public Schools hopes to eliminate the brain drain with a shorter summer replaced with intersession breaks.