Melodie Wright's kids were among the first in the country to return to school. Her son started 10th grade and her daughter began second grade in Birmingham, Alabama, the first full week of August, more than six weeks before the official end of summer.
Millions of students across the country, including in Alabama, are loading up backpacks, meeting with teachers and classmates and adjusting to classroom procedures since school kicked off. Elsewhere in the U.S., kids are flocking to beaches on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, as scorching temperatures hit some areas including Death Valley and Puerto Rico.
Wright feels like it's too early in the year for school. She wishes she had more time to spend with the kids. She would happily wait until after Labor Day when schools in other parts of the country start their calendar years.
Keary Noy, another Alabama parent, sees it differently. For her, the earlier school starts, the better. Noy's son's charter school moved its start date to the beginning of August, but she would have preferred a July start.
The first day of school is, of course, not consistent across the country. Data shows start dates generally correlate to the norms where you live.
Students in Southern states are more likely to start school in early August, according to a 2023 analysis by the Pew Research Center of school calendars. Researchers based their findings on 1,573 public school district calendars from the 2023-24 school year.
Kids at school districts in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania typically have the latest back-to-school days, the Pew analysis shows.
The most common start dates for districts are during the second and third full weeks of August, Pew found.
Most schools near Regana Bracey in New Jersey will open again after Labor Day.
Bracey, who belongs to a parent group working on educational reform,recalls being amazed at the great divide in start dates since she was a child visiting family in the South in the late summers, and her cousins would be back in school already.
"My cousins got out in May and they were always on summer break earlier. And I was envious of that. But on the reverse side, they were going back to school earlier," she said.
Decades later, the variety in what months people consider "summer break" seems normal.
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Why do some schools return earlier than others?
A majority of states require schools to offer about 180 days of instruction with some exceptions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
However, there is less uniformity across the nation when it comes to calendar start dates. At least 15 states have laws specifying when public schools' calendars must start or end. At least another 27 states allow districts to determine when to return from summer vacation, according to an Education Commission of the States 2023 report that compares calendar year policies across the nation.
Requiring kids to return to classes for some portion of the summer came about in the late 1800s and early 1900s, in a shift fromone-room schoolhouses to age-graded classrooms, when schools began seeing lower attendance at urban schools during the summer months, according to the Pew Research Center.
In the past, the school calendar years were tailored toward agricultural patterns or were open year-round.
"In fact, into the early 20th century, rural schools typically operated summer and winter sessions, with children working on farms in spring and fall to help with planting and harvesting," the Pew article explains. "Urban schools, on the other hand, were open nearly year-round, though many children attended sporadically or for just part of the year."
Schools are trying out later start times in parts of the US
Another consideration in some areas is keeping kids cool in the summer. This is a challenge for schools as regions adjust to hotter temperatures at the start of the school year. Some buildings don't have adequate air conditioning to keep kids cool enough to learn.
In response to a parent survey, the School District of Philadelphia adjusted its calendar a year ago to start after Labor Day during the 2023-2024 school year, making it later than the 2022-23 school year.
But even with the delayed start, Philadelphia schools sent kids home early at the start of the last school year due to hot temperatures.
Other areas will see later start dates this year, including Milwaukee Public Schools which start on Sept. 3. Some schools in the district previously followed an early start calendar year beginning in mid-August, but the district was forced to cancel classes due to the heat in the early days of the school year.
Contributing: Rory Linnane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com.Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
