Fla. Parents Win Retreat on Year-Round Schools

By Lonnie Harp

For many parents, juggling basketball practice, piano lessons, Brownies, and the occasional getaway is bad enough. So when residents of two Florida counties were faced with adding assorted school vacations to the mix, they balked.

At the urging of parents in Orange and Seminole counties, school administrators recently backtracked on multiyear plans to implement year-round schedules in all of the districts' elementary and middle schools. Instead, the districts, which together serve 180,000 students, will return next year to a more traditional approach, with a long summer break.

The schools began experimenting with the year-round calendar believing that students forget less over several shorter breaks than...