Why does school start so early now? When I went to school, we didn't start

until early Sept. (This was in prehistoric times.)

Now they started this year Aug. 24. Why is this?

For the same reason, tourism.

Don't know if it happened in Horry County or not, but it didn't in the entire state.

...in order to synchronize calendars with the local HS district (so families can have vacations together). That old traditional start...after Labor Day...goes back to a time in our history where we were an agrarian society. Kids were needed to work the farm during the summer.

That is no longer the case. As a teacher, I know that if students are out of school for two months, there is a loss of learning that has to be retaught in the fall. Shorter vacations...spread out during the year, prevent that loss.

families taking children on a trip to resorts. Of course, for my kids that meant spending the last week in February stuck in the house looking out at the cold rain/wet snow/mud!
The irony: the families with the money to take a winter vacation also had the nicest houses!

We never had spring break and now they do.

Personally I don't think its necessary. I was working on an ed. degree and was required to perform 80 hrs of observation for 4 semesters. We could never do our hours on a Friday because most Fridays were goof-off days - movies or pajama day or whatever. How many Fridays were wasted? I guess the kids can't be busy all the time, but still....

and teacher workshop days is the difficulty of arranging day care. I suspect a lot of kids spend those days home alone behind locked doors.

for high school and junior high, that is in bay area CA, and my other grand kids elementary school near DC started beginning of Aug year round school.

A subtle form of a demotion.

AKA union busting.

My kid's not a morning person and she inherited that from us. :hangover:

When I was a kid, school started at 9 and ended at 4. And the year started the day after Labor Day and ended in early June. Period.
I was appalled by how early my niece and nephew had to go to school every day. And just so some jocks could have their practice time in the afternoon? Hell, I played football in high school -- practice came AFTER the end of the school day. Classes came first. No questions allowed.
You could make a case that indulging organized sports is a form of bribery, bribing boys not to drop out. Therefore, we teach them that they have a right to expect special treatment. Simultaneously, we teach them that there's no inherent reason to stay in school and apply yourself.

Seems like it would make sense to start later, when the weather is cooler.

than when school started after labor day. end of may

The Baby-Boomers had a small baby-boom of our own, but the original Boomers are still demographically the largest age group in the United States.

This is remarkable also because so many of us were American society's "canaries in the coal mines" with drugs, drunk driving and red M&Ms and driving foreign sports cars on Highway 1 while stoned out of your mind on cocaine.

I don't know why they start school so early these days. I liked the 45 on and the 15 off schedule.

how many days they added to the school year. but it is longer than the past

Already gone on to the Great Rock and Roll Party in the sky.

Though it's ahrd to tell if that is totally accurate, due to immigration. It's possible that without the added numbers of immigrants in the Boomers' age ctegory, the true portrayal of how many of us have met thebig demise would be higher.

My son's footbal team began 2 a days in Texas heat on the 5th of August.
They are also making parents pay in some Texas school districts if their kids need a bus...which means a lot of kids will be walking home with a backpack in over 100-degree weather.

My partner says that they are working towards a year-round school year by extending holidays, breaks etc.He's a teacher...and not too thrilled about teaching rowdy 5th graders math in a hot classroom with no outdoor break.They have AC in Texas,but it works overtime trying to cool facillities.

Up through my first year in college (if I remember correctly) we started in September, but then broke for Christmas vacation for a couple of weeks, then came back in January for a few weeks before breaking for a couple of weeks between the Fall and Spring semesters. Usually you'd have to start studying for finals and finishing term papers when you got back after Christmas...x(

Then we started in August but finished the semester by Christmas. It made it so much better then because there was more continuity (and you got to enjoy Christmas since you didn't have to return to finish the semester! :D)

as an excellent time to pile on homework. Five of my kids had a junior high math teacher who sent home the same 20 page packet of extra math problems every Thanksgiving. Since we spent two or three days with relatives, this caused a lot of tension. Unfortunately, we were too attuned to each kid doing his/her own work to save the answers year to year!

That is still summer. This is in the area north of Atlanta. I heard that Michigan passed a law that school cannot start until after Labor Day. That makes sense to me. When I was still teaching in Connecticut, the kids started school the Wednesday before Labor Day. The teachers started the preceding week.

My kids used to go after Labor Day to early-to-mid June.

Some districts that start mid-August are done mid-May now.

I still prefer after Labor Day.

school's canceled due to snow days?

Back in the dark ages, we were off from noon on Xmas Eve until the day after New Year's Day. We also got 2 presidential holidays in February and then no breaks at all until Memorial Day, just before we were sprung for the year. Now they get one holiday in February and a spring break in March or April.

Good Friday off, and there were also many military retirees, so we got Nov. 11.

my guess is it is TOOOOOOOO taxing on the little darlings to come out of vacation to a WHOLE week of school right off the bat. They need to be eeeeeeased into it.

binder with plastic cover demanded by that one teacher along with the special ruled green note paper.

one teacher told her kids they could not use a multi-tab/segmented notebook for her class. They had to buy a separate, single note book for her class alone.

Now, I don't have anything against teachers. You couldn't pay enough (and they don't get paid enough)to do what they do and deal with the parents (whose kids NEVER do ANYTHING wrong, and who are generally less educated than their kids currently are), the smart-mouth, entitled kids, politicians.....but some of them have serious delusions of grandeur with their edicts. ex: my step-daughter's middle school science teacher had an interesting rule.......if you made it to class on time and were in your seat when the bell rang but then during the 90 minutes of class needed to use the lavatory......you would be marked as TARDY (which would indicate to me she does not know the meaning of the word 'tardy' - but that is another rant), and 2 or 3 (I can't remember now) tardies in a semester got you detention or something along those lines.

It might have worked if someone had synchronized the classroom clocks. But Teacher A at one end of the building dismissed according to her slow clock, and Teacher B marked kids tardy according to her fast clock!

Just weird.

You start in August because of the "built-in" snow days. If you don't have a certain % of closings due to weather, then you start after Labor Day.

we have many kids who do not return until after Labor Day, due to family "vacations". Then, we have the wonderful chore of getting them "caught up" on two weeks of work! But, of course, administration sees NOTHING wrong with this!

in central Illinois, and this was in the late 70s and early 80s. When my daughter started going to school in the Philly area 25 years later I asked my wife "Why the fuck do you guys start school SO LATE?"

But Jersey starts in late August, so the beaches are relatively empty for us this week. Hahahaha, stoopid Jersey kids!

we started in late Aug. and ended before Memorial Day. May it's regional - adding in snow days and such.

I used to start school on my brothers birthday, which is august 14th. O and I am 25 now

It does seem earlier and earlier every year

because it's so damnably hot in those brick buildings.

I don't see where they gain anything starting in the middle of August.

I was told it has to do with the end of year FCAT tests, but I don't know how true that is.

:evilgrin:

It doesn't start till a week or so after Labor Day.

I think it's to compensate for any potential snow days. Also so kids can get out earlier in the spring when we have our best weather.

and came home later than they do now? Maybe I walked barefoot uphill both ways, in three feet of snow, I guess.

I don't know if that's good or bad (perhaps neutral)....?

That isn't needed anymore. Butthat is just one reason, schools are getting closer to becoming year round with quarterly vacations. Some already are.

But here in Texas, schools are usually out for the summer because it costs so much to run AC so hard.

But the school system was terribly underfunded and instruction was poor. And this was in Georgia's largest and supposedly most modern high school. It just wasn't up to the standards of other public school systems I had attended in other parts of the country.

We ponied up for a secular private school and they start mid August too.

They want to get as much instructional time in before the children need to take state-mandated tests in April or May.

Would start with half a week, then the following week we had Labor Day off, so we had a 4-day week as the second week, and not a full 5-day week until the 3rd week. Eased us back into it. I thought it worked well.