This. When I was a kid, 40+ years ago, the school year always started the day after Labor Day, and extended into early/mid June.
My understanding is that one additional factor for schools now starting in August is that air conditioning in elementary and high schools has become far more widespread, making it more feasible to have school in session while the weather is still hot.
The Chicago Public Schools had been a holdout on moving start dates, not opening until after Labor Day, until last year, when CPS finally changed their start date to August; the school year started this week. They indicated that a big part of the reason for the change was to bring the system into better sync with other school districts, as well as college schedules.
I grew up in KY. The explanation given, and it seems plausible, was that we started early as a buffer for snow/ice//inclement weather, as our snow removal capability was/is almost negligible. We were out of school for a month once due to a heavy snowfall in the 1970s, and wound up attending school until shortly before the 4th of July. There was an ice storm in the early 2000s that knocked out power for days/weeks, closing schools.
I remember being truly stunned at seeing kids still running around loose in August when I moved to Chicago, figuring the heavy snow they got meant school closures galore. New friends gloated that Chicago could handle such things, just trust Mayor Jane Byrne.
Schools also want to have as much time as possible before the state-run standardized tests.
Well, usually. The charter school I was at two years ago started later than everyone else, and then expected teachers to not start actual instruction until a week after that, and then chose the earliest possible timeslot for state testing (two weeks earlier than the latest slot). I’m still trying to figure out how having students fail the state tests was profitable for them.
Yet another consideration is that this is how most colleges do it, and some schools deliberately mimic colleges.
Extracurriculars often start up before classes do. Marching band usually has band camp a week or two before school starts, for instance.
Here, state law forbids starting school until after Labor Day. Pushed by legislators from rural areas, where help was needed at harvest time. And supported by employers who had a lot of teenagers in summer jobs. (But there is an exception if schools have a building construction/remodeling program going. Big city schools can use that as a loophole – they almost always have some construction going on. But they get a lot of kickback from parents/employers, so they don’t do that much anymore.)
Schools are required to have X number of instruction days during the year (or they get a reduction in the state funding they get.) And it doesn’t count as a day unless they complete 2/3rds of the day. That time was 1:15pm when I was in school; that was the time they sent buses home early in bad weather (blizzards).
Last fall, there were a rash of fake mass shooter reports inspired by social media (‘swatting’) in various schools. They locked down or closed and sent students home early. Then the state Department of Education said that the day this happened, and the next day (when many schools had assemblies, counselors, etc. instead of regular classes) would not count as an instruction day, and that the schools would have to extend the school year by 2 days next June to cover this. That seemed to quickly put an end to such fake phone reports.
Around here, most schools schedule the year for a few days (five is typical) more than what’s required by law, to allow for snow days and the like. If you have more than five such days (rare, but it can happen), then you need to start extending the school year.
When I was on the local school board (was that really 40 years ago? It was.) we were pressured to start before Labour Day so that they could have a ski week in February or March.
My younger son went through 12 years of school here in Montreal without having even one snow day. Not for the lack of snow (average over 100" a year), but the efficiency of the snow clearance. The two older kids did have a few snow days.
When I lived in Mississippi (late 80’s), there was a fund raiser to “Cool the Schools”. The Superintendent asked me for a donation. I asked when they started school, and he said in the 2nd week of August. I asked when the school year ended and he said Mid May.
I said to him if heat is problem in their school system why don’t they go to school from Labor Day to early June when the temperatures are generally cooler. He said that they tried to time school year to the local colleges and universities.
I shook my head, rolled my eyes and wrote him a check for $200.
Well, no , but ending around Memorial Day is the same sort of thing as starting before Labor Day. The only time I ever ended a school year in May was in college. Up until then for me, my kids and now my granddaughter school starts after Labor Day ( sometimes a week after Labor Day ) and ends in mid - late June. It’s normally a day or two after Labor Day but it depends how the Jewish holidays fall.
All I’m saying is that the Platonic ideal of the school year in the US is from Labor Day through Memorial Day, and that if you have some defined number of minutes of education combined with several weeks of off time, it’s not actually possible to do that, so it’s got to give somewhere.
I suspect that a lot of it may actually be trying to balance out the fall and spring semesters a little. My college experience was that we started right after Labor day and ended before Xmas, but the spring semester started on MLK Day, and ran through the first week of June. That’s about 15 weeks vs. 19 or even 20, depending on how you slice it. And in my recollection, the fall semester was always a bit of a bobsled ride, while the spring semester was a bit more leisurely and not so break-neck paced.
In the upper midwest tons of public schools were built without air conditioning. Really no need for it if school started after labor day.
Try starting school in the middle of August and for a few weeks you could have 90+ degree days making classrooms unbearable.
I don’t think Memorial Day has ever been considered the Platonic ideal of when to finish school. If there’s any “Platonic end date” at all, I’d call it the Solstice.
