The best argument for converting some schools to the year-round calendar is easier to grasp, it seems to me, because it has to do with cold, hard cash: We've got to do something to deal with growing enrollments, and year-round schools have greater capacities. That makes the buildings we have stretch further -- and why not do that?

The arguments against mandatory year-round schools are more intangible. Lately, parents who want to maintain traditional summer breaks have been taking a lot of flak. Do they deserve it?

I'm not so sure. As we become more of a driven, gotta-be-doing-something-every-minute society, I'm appreciating more and more simply doing nothing.

Looking back at the summer, it seems that my kids enjoyed most the times they did the least.

We had our kids in a YMCA camp, art camp, Right Track Academy, Bible camp and gymnastics camp. Yet they seemed to have the most fun at a friend's house, where they pretended to be princesses, and going on vacation, where they swam all day.

I also went to YMCA camps when I was a kid. But my most vivid memories are such unstructured activities as playing combat, or playing skully (a game in which players shoot bottle caps with their fingers on a course drawn in chalk on the street).

One of the arguments that has been made for year-rounds is that students retain more with a shorter summer break. We made sure our kids did a little reading and math during the summer and they seemed to gain ground, not lose it.

The board already has cast its vote in favor of mandatory year-round schools; now, the question is whether voters will retaliate by voting down the bond referendum in November.

While both sides may have good arguments, how one should act on those arguments may be a different matter.