My North Shore (Ipswich) schools had both February and April vacations. (I was in public schools from '75 - '88)
NH also seems to have both, though they occur on different weeks.
From a work perspective, you can always tell where people with kids live, as they tend to schedule their vacations to warm places on the respective Feb holiday week.
180 day requirement on school days, and in light-snow years, we got out earlier. Now, due to increased sensitivity to liability, many schools seem to call a snow day far earlier, and with less cause than they did back when I was in school. This seems to be leading many districts to much later ‘end of year’ dates than back when I was a kid.
'78 was probably the latest end date of the school year that I can remember, but of course, we were out of school for the better part of a week, for just that one storm.
Since I was on a weird year round deal from 4th grade on (“Concept 6”, it was cleverly called), all the breaks my kids get in a regular school year baffle me. I went for 4 months, off for 2, and had no major time off during those 4 months. A couple days for Christmas and Thanksgiving was about it - I didn’t fully get the concept of Spring Break until most of the way through college (when I went to Decatur Illinois. Ok, I never really got the concept)
I don’t think my kids have a week off in February, just a long weekend, but they’re starting earlier every year (Aug 11 08/09 school year) to allow for things like a week off in October. They have to attend the same number of days, they’re just making summer shorter. Why don’t they just use some of those snow days that global warming is supposed to be making obsolete?
We had it when I was in school (HS class of '86) in New York. It was called “Mid-Winter Recess”. I do not know if they still have it there. My son’s school system (Baltimore County, MD) does not. What they do have is enough randomly scattered Fridays off to make up an additional week or two off. Staff development days, conference days, etc. From what I can tell he has about the same number of school days I did, but the teachers have less time off than mine did.
This has caused some confusion for parents when they have children who attend schools administered by different local authorities. This is the case here in Newark where some children attend schools over the border in Lincolnshire. It means children in the same household will have their holidays at different times, making it very difficult for the family to go away on holiday together.