Campbell County and Dayton schools this fall will join a growing group of districts that are making summer matter.

        These districts, adopting an alternative or year-round calendar, are reorganizing the academic year to provide more continuous learning — by shortening summer vacation and offering more frequent breaks.

        Campbell County and Dayton join Silver Grove Independent Schools, which became the first Northern Kentucky district to adopt an alternative calendar two years ago.

        At least two other Northern Kentucky districts — Bellevue and Boone County — are studying whether to switch to year-round or alternative calendars. Nearly 2 million students nationwide — triple the number of students 15 years ago — attend schools on year-round calendars.

        “It makes good sense,” said Roger Brady, superintendent of Campbell County Schools, where students will start classes Aug. 8, a week earlier than usual. “You give people a break and give them a chance to clear their heads, and they come back reinvigorated.”

        Advocates say the nontraditional calendar minimizes the learning loss that occurs during a typical three-month summer vacation, while discipline referrals decrease and teachers' and students' stress levels plummet.

        Mr. Brady said the nontraditional calendar also provides an opportunity for students who are falling behind to catch up during the frequent breaks, rather than wait until a three-month break for summer school.

        Robert Smotherman, president of the National Association for Year-Round Education, said about 90 school districts in Kentucky are using some form of the alternative calendar.

        “Learning doesn't really take place with long gaps. Learning is pretty much a continuous thing,” said Mr. Smotherman, superintendent of Bardstown Independent Schools in Nelson County, about 35 miles south of Louisville.

        “We've had research that tells us if you shorten the summer break to six or seven weeks that a lot of learning loss is minimized.”

        Fred Bassett, superintendent of Beechwood Schools in Kenton County, said his district looked at year-round school but decided it was not in its best interest at this time.

        Beechwood has an after-school tutoring program, which Mr. Bassett prefers over remedial classes during an alternative calendar's frequent breaks.

        And, he said, district officials aren't so sure that shortening the summer break would result in students retaining more information.

        “There is also the danger that they forget information during the long breaks in between the nine-week grading periods. You're adding what amounts to Christmas break every nine weeks,” Mr. Bassett said.

        Other knocks against year-round school includes interfering with students' summer jobs and athletic and academic camps.

        Mr. Smotherman said he could think of no “educational reason” to oppose year-round school.

        “The drawback is sometimes people try to rush it and they scare people,” he said.

        One of the biggest misconceptions of the alternative calendar is that students spend more time in school, he said.

        In fact, students still attend the state-required 175 days of school.

        Lynn Krohmer, a preschool teacher at Grandview Elementary in Bellevue, said she hopes the school board will approve year-round school by year's end, meaning it could take effect in 2003-04.

        Ms. Krohmer said teachers spend an excessive amount of time at the start of the school year reviewing material that students should have learned the previous year.

        Under the alternative calendar, she said, teachers spend less time reviewing old lessons and more time teaching new material, which improves test scores.

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