Hamilton County’s venture into year-round schools will end this year after a nearly seven-year experiment that neither teachers nor parents fully embraced, school officials say.
Hardy Elementary School will start the 2011-12 school year with a traditional August-to-May class schedule.
Hardy adopted year-round school in the 2004-05 school year. Officials hoped the six-weeks-on, three-weeks-off pattern that ran year-round would beef up instruction for students who sometimes lost ground during summer break.
But in the years since, school officials say, leadership and teachers left the school as parents lost interest in the year-round approach. Last year the school failed to reach federal benchmarks for academic achievement, known as Adequate Yearly Progress.
Most parents and some teachers never truly embraced the program, said Ray Swoffard, deputy superintendent of elementary school operations.