How do different regions choose their school calendar year?

partly it has something to do with the locality’s weather. The hottest period of the year are timed to be vacation times. . . . Cooling down a school building would put a lot of strain on a school’s budget, so keeping the kids out during the warmest time makes economic sense.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking, too. Summer in the southern hemisphere is winter in the northern.

In the US the school calendar originally had a lot to do with the harvest. Kids were out in the summer to help their families on the farm. Also, recently northern schools have started doing winter breaks at Christmas time and then again a week in February (which makes perfect sense to me). It allows families to take a vacation at the worst time of the winter, and also saves on heating bills in the schools. Also, some counties work together to have different spring breaks. Like Palm Beach county and Broward county in FL border each other and one has spring break the week before easter, and the other the week after.

Back to the farming aspect. This can even be observed at the college level, not so much now, but years ago. I went to Michigan State University, which was originally Michigan Agricultural College, and even when I went 20 years ago they were still starting late September. They have no switched to the more common late August time frame.

@JLeslie You are right about the school year, especially in rural areas, being set around the growing season. Where I live, some farm kids still take time off from school during the busiest days of harvest and planting.:)
go green!

Go white!

Also, more on time off during the year. There are rules about attendance, that you have to have a minimum attendance on a day, or the day does not count. I think, if I remember correctly, that if more than 30% of the student body does not show for school, then it doesn’t count towards the 180 days necessary. It’s like a snow day so to speak. So religious affiliation within the local area are considered. In very Jewish areas Yum Kippur may be a planned day off (because Jewish children are likely to stay home that day) while in the bible belt they may totally ignore it.

@JLeslie yes they do have days off for local customs.
Our school has opening day of deer hunting season off.
Probably at least a third of the students hunt.

@wilma I have never heard that one before. Interesting. Awww, can I just say I have a about 4 deer outside my window right now, one is literally less than 10 feet away. We love them. Where do you live?

Rural Michigan

Most places I’ve lived the basic school shedule is arranged around agriculture. Even if the area has become urbanized, it stays that way out of tradition. In northern Maine, the school year starts in August, but then breaks for the potato harvest. In rural Quebec, school breaks for the Maple harvest. Many Asian countries school schedules are based on rice planting and harvests.

Interesting—I heard that Central and South America had arranged their schedule around agriculture, but even though I read all of the Little Girl on the Prairie books, I didn´t know that the US’ school schedule depended on the harvest as well.. Well, it makes sense…

I can´t tell if Wilma has a picture of a sea slug (a Fluther picture, that is) or a bone. After you mentioned deer hunting, I immediately thought the object in the picture might be a bone.