What's wrong with having nine months of school and three full months of Summer?

You forget half the shit you learned over the summer. Regular short breaks are better than long infrequent ones

I was once in a “quarterly” system with short weeks of maybe 3–3½ week breaks between quarters: One in mid September, one around Christmas, one in the Spring like around Easter ideally, and the other early Summer or late may,

The shorter breaks allow for family vacations and other events people do when they have time off, and land at times of the year when you WANT the time off, to reflect and recuperate from all the heavy academic activity that falls at the end of the academic quarter

Still—those long Summers of years gone by….

They say kids forget, but I like the day after Labor Day through early June schedule for a lot of reasons.

Mostly, if they are going to do 2.5 to 3 months off in the “summer” I can’t for the life of me understand why starting school early to mid August makes any sense! ⅔ of the US starts getting too cold to swim once September hits, and swimming is one of the great pleasures of summertime fun for a lot of people.

Moreover, our northern most states have very short seasons for summer tourism, and having children go back to school in August limits vacation time to our northern states. It hurts the economy of those states and the US overall most likely. I guess maybe some states starting a couple of weeks before Labor Day might make sense, to stagger schedules in the country, not sure. I think from TN latitude on south across the country starting in mid August must cost more in air conditioning than if they started in September.

Having the summer off also gives high school students the chance to work over the summer to save for college and adult life.

There aren’t many family farms left in America, but there are enough that in some markets the ag schedule still is the best schedule for some families.

I am also totally in favor of year round school as an option in communities. 2 weeks between each 9 week term and then the summer break is about a month. Dyersburg, north of you, had that schedule when I lived in Memphis. This helps families that have parents who have certain times of the year where work makes it impossible to vacation or spend time with their kids. More options throughout the year for vacationing. Plus, more flexibility for what day to travel. The typical school year locks parents in to traveling when it’s expensive during peak times.

I would prefer school year-round with a two week break every three months.

What you’re describing is what we did when I was a kid in elementary school. We atarted the day after Labor Day & ended on May 30 unless we had a lot of snow days to make up & even then we only went maybe the first week of June & it was over. They claim now that children can’t remember what they learned the previous year; however I don’t remember having a difficult time pulling that knowledge out of my head. We always took our family vacation on the first 2 weeks after getting out of school. Depending on how our summer went, we occasionally took an additional week on the last week of August & then we returned to begin school the very next week. The first weekend in August was a “tax free” weekend as long as you were buying school supplies or clothes for school. We also gave our teachers a “enjoy your summer” gift on the very last day of school!!!

Wasted time and space. You have the school buildings and supplies just sitting there not being used for 3 months. The Japanese, for one, have school all year long with breaks between semesters. It helps keep the kids dialed in, and, boy!- Are their kids dialed in!

That is how it is here. Just looked at the twins calendar from last year (high school). First day of school was Sept 5 and the last day was June 13th.

When I was in San Diego we had year round that was something like three months on and a month off. That was my favorite since three months off just gets boring and after a few months of school it was nice to get in a long break. Math classes killed me when I was in schools that had summers off. I hated having the first month of math class being a refresher course.

Nothing. Nothing is wrong with this schedule.

The shortened summer has given some schools the ability to give a winter break in February when it’s FREEZING and very snowy. That makes sense to me. I think it’s sometimes an extended Presidents’ Day weekend. So, it’s not year round school, but more breaks during the year in a traditional ag calendar.

The more they break up the year, the less ability a teacher has to get a summer job if they want the income. Also, what happens to summer school for children? You might say teachers shouldn’t have to work a second job, but almost all other professions get 2–5 weeks off, plus let’s say 6 holidays. Teachers get more holidays during the year, and more like 6–8 weeks off. I’m all for giving them a decent salary, some states need to improve that, but some who even get good salaries do some extra work for more income.

What about parents who need to arrange for a sitter or send their children to camp? Is the year round easier or more difficult?

In some climates, like in Florida, I think year round makes a lot of sense. We can swim and have fun almost all year. Disney is a nightmare in the summer. Crowded and hot.

Some parts of Florida used to be on the strawberry schedule, which was school off around Jan-Feb. I don’t know if strawberries are still picked by hand? They could go back to that with schools doing different schedules now. If children even help pick the strawberries now?

I think part of what needs to be taken into consideration is high school graduates being ready to start college in late August or September.

My school calendar was the Wednesday after Labor Day through the third week of June. I graduated from high school on the Saturday after Father’s Day. My senior year we got two weeks off at Easter, but I don’t know if they stayed with that schedule.

College schedule was trimesters. We started the day after Labor Day and were done, I think, the first week of June. 10 weeks in the autumn, a 3 week optional interterm session, 10 weeks in winter, 10 weeks in spring.

I think each school system needs to decide based on the needs of the children and the community.

Here in NY, school starts a day or two after Labor Day and goes until the end of June (June 25 or 26). I have friends in Louisiana and school for them is starting this coming week (first week in August). That seems so early. Here in NY, a lot of schools are older buildings without air conditioning. To have school start in mid-summer would mean sweltering buildings. Also, what about summer vacation? I guess they get out earlier so summer is June and July? I know Louisiana is very hot in August.

Here, summer camps are July and August.

I’m still thinking about where to go on a little trip toward the end of the month.

@jca2 Would you like more chance to get out of the winter? The break between semesters in December isn’t really your coldest time of year usually. January and February are typically the most intense part of winter. By the time you get to spring break you can start having nice weather where you live also. In the summer it’s like vacation where you live, even though it’s still nice to get away.

@JLeslie: Here, I am afraid to even make travel plans (flights) during winter because of the chance of storms and flights getting cancelled. All the time, in winter, there are news stories of people sleeping at the airports for three days trying to wait for flights out because they are snowed in. So for me, I don’t make flight plans during winter.

We would get 2–2.5 months of summer vacation, with school ending in early-to-mid June and beginning in mid-to-late August. Three full months of summer seems like a bit much, also cuts down on vacations in other parts of the year. But overall I don’t oppose the “summer vacation” model.

@jca2 Makes sense. I guess since I always want to escape the cold weather I’m always obsessing about getting out of dodge when it’s winter, but your points are valid. When we live in cold weather (my husband and I) we almost never were able to get out, because his heavy work load is the beginning of the calendar year. I know a lot of retirees who are snowbirds, but they have more time if they are delayed a day it’s not a big deal.

My homeschool kids have “school” every day. We make everything they do a learning experience. They think it’s fun to learn.