Soccorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas, began its conversion to YRE for economic reasons in 1991. Located in a property-poor community, school officials looked to YRE to assist in accommodating a rapidly rising enrollment. Using a four track system, they were able to increase the capacity of the most overcrowded schools by a third. Based on their success, all of the schools in the district switched to some form of a year-round calendar three years later. Soccorro administrators and faculty stress that they consider the restructuring to have as many academic benefits as economic.
Research supports the existence of summer learning loss.
As a result, teachers may spend as much as six to eight weeks each fall reviewing the same concepts taught the previous year. McKinley Elementary School, located just outside of Dayton, Ohio, converted to YRE two years ago, after teachers became concerned about the number of students who qualified for the school's Title I program. With no help over the summer, many of them forgot what they had learned. Report cards come out every nine weeks, and the children go home knowing that in three weeks they can start over. While teachers at McKinley and other schools who have switched to YRE are adamant about the academic advantages of the schedule, the little research that has been done is less conclusive.