Can you believe that summer is almost over?
I know it is not really over, at least not according to the calendar, but if your kids are heading back to school soon, it means that your summer is basically coming to an end.
I have been working on some fun back to school posts and it got me thinking about when everyone actually goes back to school.
Here in Oklahoma most schools start somewhere between August 13th and August 20th. I know that is a pretty common time frame in the southern part of the U.S.
Growing up I went to school in Oregon and we almost always started school right after Labor Day. Of course we also went until the middle of June. We might start school in August in Oklahoma, but it allows us to get out by the end of May.
After living in Oklahoma for over 20 years, I have decided that schools start in August because you can’t do much else in August. It is way too hot to do much outside so you might as well go to school. 🙂 That is probably not the real reason. I am guessing the school calendars go back to the days when more people farmed and had crops that had to be planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. Now those things don’t matter as much, but I think most areas still follow those same schedules.
Now I am curious when do your kids head back to school? Is it in the next week or two or do you start school after Labor Day?
We’re in our second week back to school. Here in Utah lots of schools are on a year round schedule to accommodate the number of elementary school kids!
We start on Monday at our school in Indiana.
Texas passed a law a few years back that school couldn’t start until the week after August 17th, so school starts here on the 24th. It surprises me that so many southern school systems still start early in August. The reason Texas changed the rule was to save money. The fewer super hot school days, the less electricity is used to cool the classrooms.
Our private church school starts Aug. 18, with the local public schools starting up this week, I think. We live in MS. 🙂 Our school lets out around the middle of May, or slightly earlier…public schools, soon after.
Here in NW Washington, we aren’t starting until after Labor Day.
A lot of the local schools started a couple of weeks ago – blended calendar, moving toward a more year round type. Our homeschool starts Aug. 17th. (Indiana)
NM starts the 17th of August. We live just three houses from our grands school. Love that they are so near!
Here in southern Arizona, the public schools run Aug 6-May 25 this year. The kids take a week off in the fall & another one in the spring, and of course they take off a few days for the rodeo in February.
8/27, for our school district in MD–it does vary a little bit by county, but I believe all public schools start before Labor Day in MD.
In Iowa schools are not allowed to start until after Aug 23rd, which is the last day of our state fair. Until this year a number of schools started sooner so 1st semester could be finished before Christmas vacation and they were done before Memorial Day. But in a nutshell, there was a lot of complaining by tourism and the state fair about the lack of help by youth at events. Thus, over the objection of most school districts, a bill was passed with the new requirement.
Our son started his first day of school, Kindergarten, last Wed July 29. YES, July! We live in a suburb of Indianapolis and the schools in our district start school the end of July and get out the end of May. They also get a few nice breaks in between though, 2 weeks in Oct- 2 weeks at Xmas/New Years- 2 weeks in Mar.
This is our first go round with schooling in Indiana as our son just started school. My husband and I are from Southern CA and when we went to school it was start after Labor Day and get out mid-June. I’m use to that. The end of July came so quick, especially to send him off for his first day ever! So proud but so sad just the same. LOL