MARION COUNTY, Fla. – The pilot program for year-round school has been going on for more than six months and leaders at one Florida school district say, so far, it has been a success.
Marion County School Board members met on Thursday for an update on Wyomina Park Elementary, where more than 500 students have an adjusted school year calendar.
Third to fifth graders are part of the pilot program at Wyomina Park in Ocala and started school on July 22, a couple of weeks earlier than peers in their district.
To add on, instead of having 12 weeks of continuous break in the summer, it is spread apart throughout the year.
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Chad Fraizer, area superintendent for the school district, presented findings which conclude state assessment test scores in both English and math have increased slightly when comparing the 2023-24 school year to 2024-25.
“Overall if you are looking for cohort-to-cohort trend, we are seeing improvement in proficiencies across grades three through five,” Fraizer said.
Fraizer then mentioned how student attendance at Wyomina Park improved a bit — by 1.8% — according to the data he presented.
Factors such as 70 fewer students from the prior school year and incentives in place to encourage attendance may also be the cause of the slight increase, he said.
Read Fraizer’s report in full by clicking here.
The pilot program is set to go for four years, according to the law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in 2023 allowing the experiment.
At the conclusion of the four years, the education commissioner will provide a report and recommendation to the governor and the Florida Legislature on whether to implement year-round school for all students, as News 6 has previously reported.
One other school in Central Florida is a part of the pilot program, Challenger 7 Elementary in Brevard. Leaders in that school district have also mentioned the experiment being a success, stating they did not have quite as many hurricane makeup days because one of those hurricanes happened during a break period.
Meanwhile, members of the Marion County School Board expressed enthusiasm for the pilot program, such as Allison Campbell. She said Wyomina Park even has a different intense energy.
“As we continue to see this data, I’ll be interested to see what the state chooses to do with it, because we are seeing a lot of success,” Campbell said.
Furthermore, another school board member, Sarah James, mentioned her support for the adjusted calendar as it can make it easier for families to take vacations without worrying about kids missing school.
“It would be so hard for me to take a vacation during a standard instructional time because we have built-in opportunities for vacation. But this nontraditional calendar affords other opportunities to take a break as a family and go on a trip without interrupting instructional time. I love the calendar. I would fully support doing it district wide,” James said.
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