Just read https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kentucky-school-district-cancels-classes-covid-flu-strep-rcna101511 article. Kentucky started school August 9. Why start school in the middle of summer? In my area, we started the day after Labor Day. I always figured that was the unofficial “end of summer”. No more white shoes et al.
In our area, school also started August 9. On the other hand, the last day of school is before Memorial Day. So the total length of summer vacation stays the same.
There’s been a move towards earlier school years across the country. I’ve heard two main reasons for this, both mainly having to do with high school:
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This way, Winter Break falls right between two grading period, instead of being near the end of one. With the old schedule, final exams would come a few weeks after kids return in January. That was inconvenient for both students and teachers.
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Colleges want final grades earlier, so they can make final decisions on admissions.
Since high schools would change their schedule for these reasons, that trickles down in a unified school district to the middle and elementary schools.
Could be a year-round school. Some KY districts have gone that way. There’s better retention of skills and knowledge if there isn’t a huge break over the summer.
In Texas we are generally starting Aug 15th or so these days, and I far prefer it. It’s too hot to do anything anyway right now: like, retail is seriously suffering because people don’t even want to get in a hot car or walk across a parking lot. Outdoor stuff, even swimming, is just not happening. So we might as well be in school. And this way we get sprung before Memorial Day, and the last week of May/first week of June usually are still nice enough to enjoy outdoor activities.
More specific to me, I teach AP classes and the AP exams start the first Monday in May. I’d much rather have instructional time before than after.
The metro Atlanta school district I live in started August 1 - and the kids will be done the Friday before Memorial day. This is because GA schools have the option to do more breaks during the school year this way. So In mid-september, there’s fall break, then a full week at Thanksgiving. Another 2 weeks at the end of the calendar year, winter break week in February and finally spring break (another full week) in April.
This not only gives more breaks during the year, it shortens the long summer break which is apparently better for students in retained learning.
I don’t know that this is why Kentucky schools do this, but I know there are some districts in GA doing this - or a modified version of it.
The other piece I forgot is that this schedule ensures that the first semester, and any exams, are completed before the December break, so students aren’t coming back after two weeks off to semester finals.
SC is moving to year 'round school, and they (well, locally anyways) started in July.
In the UK most schools don’t start the year until the first Monday in September - around the same time as Universities. There is a bit of a campaign to move to a four-term year as they do in New Zealand.
The long summer break dates back to before there was any “public” education. Oxford and Cambridge Universities closed for the summer in part because conditions were pretty intolerable in the heat of summer and partly so that sons could go home to help at a very busy time for agriculture.
Thanks for the informative answers. I thought it was going to be about holdovers from agricultural schedules, but it looks like it’s for rational reasons. I just am so used to Labor Day being the “end of summer” that it seemed very odd to me. I remember when Cape Cod was basically full of ghost towns after Labor Day as everyone headed home so kids could go back to school.
That may have been back when it was far less common for schools to have air conditioning.
It’s also because of standardized testing. The College Board holds the AP tests in May. So school systems have started classes earlier and earlier to give the more time to prepare the students, and thus have better statistics for the system.
First Monday in September is Labor Day in the US. When I was a kid the first day of school was always the day after that - the first or second Tuesday in September.
When I went to school in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, school never started until after Labor Day (the first Monday in September) (in PA this was a legal requirement, in part so tourist sites could have teenage labor through August). One oddity was that in PA, school ended around Memorial Day (late May), while in NJ school ended in late June - I think the difference was due to the longer Fall, Winter and Spring holiday breaks.
Generally the system doesn’t care about AP scores all that much, but the kids who take the classes certainly do.
No one has mentioned to get the football teams back to school so they can practice? It was one thing I always assumed.
Here in Texas at least, they can start practicing two weeks before the start of school.
I believe the whole thing is that state legislatures have mandated specific amounts of school time, and it’s kind of ridiculous, as it’s not “X many days”, it’s “75,600 minutes” of school time. And it may get more granular than that; I don’t know.
But when you factor in that sort of granularity, along with students getting off about four weeks of actual off-time, not counting holidays like Election day, State Fair Day, and a bunch of teacher in-service days, I don’t think they can realistically start the day after Labor Day and end around Memorial Day. They’ve got to fit it in somewhere, and starting earlier in the summer seems to be the solution.
Round here and where I grew up (TX and AR respectively), extracurriculars like football and band had camps and practice before the first day of school. No real reason to set the first day of classes to coincide with an athletics schedule since those kids are already out there.
And it’s pretty miserable. You absolutely want to get done as early as possible or deal with all that high summer heat.
But a mid-August start is nice for many of the reasons mentioned above about timing around the end of year holidays, getting done before Memorial Day, etc. Probably how far north/south you are plays a role there as well in terms of weather and hours of daylight.
As for the actual start date, there’s a bit of hoop-jumping and some politics involved as well. By rule, Texas schools start on the 4th Monday of August (the 28th this year) but schools that jump through the appropriate hoops are allowed to start up to 3 weeks earlier. So, a few Texas schools are starting on the 7th, several on the 9th (my own Fort Bend ISD for example), a whole lot on the 16th, and some more started yesterday on the 23rd. Houston ISD, for various reasons, doesn’t qualify and will be starting on the mandated 28th.
It’s certainly micro managing. However, I get the idea behind it. When our schools were trying to get 182 days (or whatever) in, they would sometimes have a half day or less on the last day simply to satisfy the requirement.
Leads to some interesting experiments though.
Several Texas schools have opted to go to 4 day school weeks and extending the school day to get the mandated number of minutes. It helps with attendance and with teacher retention is the theory. But on the flip side, this increases the load on the community since most parents probably aren’t on a 4 day work week to match.
Because KY is a lubricant that makes things go smoother and faster. Thus getting to school earlier is less painful.
Somebody had to do it!