Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for August 12, 2013

I live in Washington (just not Richland, Pasco or Kennewick). I’ve cousins in Arizona whose kids have already started school in August.

I was just about to make a similar statement in that I live in Kennewick, WA.

Mass-Student Protest Time!!Be anywhere else (you want to be), only when August is Officially over than go back to school.

School ends in June here, and we start much later now in Texas. They started making the kids go in 10 minutes earlier too.

School started a few weeks ago in Atlanta. School starts today in Clayton County, and in my old home of Chatham County.

I photograph school pictures. Our first ‘fall’ job was July 16th. I think it one of those year round schools. oof. Really, our season is just now starting.

Question for Val: what’s a letter?

the schools here used to start as early as August 3 with a week break in October and November, 2 weeks at Christmas and a 2 week spring break, but the state finally stepped in and now NO ONE can start before the last week in August. they get a week at thanksgiving , 2 weeks at Christmas and a week spring break.

I brought up the year round school to my grandson last week and I thought he was gonna pass completely out. lol He hates school, told me when he goes to college he is gonna go for a week and then graduate. I wish. lol

Michigan enacted a law a few years ago that public schools cannot start until after Labor Day. I love seeing all the kids out playing right through the end of August!

Kids around here started last week.

Here in Scotland, it’s a few minutes past 1 pm as you are at 6 am.

Year round school? The kids would go stark, raving mad and the teachers would need to be put in nursing homes after the first year.

We live on the border of an elementary school in Bucks County, PA. Kids go back the day after Labor Day as they always have.

I respectfully could not disagree more. We already spend more financially per student than any place in the world, I doubt that spending more time would result in the kids catching up. And trying to figure out what to do with kids for 2 weeks here, 3 weeks there, seems more difficult to me than a couple of months (no more 3 months off, at least not here). I just think it’s nice that for the only time in their lives kids can have a couple of months of unscheduled time, spend time with family, and not have to get up to an alarm clark. That’s just my opinion, I know others will disagree and that’s fine too!

Not up to them…

When I was in school, we started right after Labor Day. We went to school 180 days a year and the SAT scores were the highest they’d ever been. Now, teachers are “teaching to the test” and independent thinking is NOT encouraged. (I graduated in 1960.)

I agree Dani, I graduated from HS in ‘59. Earned 2 BA’s 2 Master’s, a Specialist and Doctorate. AND, I am not a liberal professor. I encourage students to think for themselves. BUT, apparently I am an anomaly. Our boys went to private schools from pre-K through College

Here in KS school usually started week before Labor Day or last week of August. Then metro KS school went half days for a week or two morning as heat gets very bad not like AZ.Since few years ago metro school voted in bond for all metro school have a/c for all rooms, schools starts Mid August. 14th first day of class.Now for the kids here in KS the ending of summer break started mid July after 4th became rainy and much need rain. KS went through 2-3 year draught. For starting of August we have rain and days before school starts we have rain.Some students feel like Holly and others are happy the kids will be busy. One child will never have school drowned from a river undercurrent. One town will be late a storm went through after 4th and tore the roof off. They will start after Labor Day meaning out later; otherwise start this week.

For my part this week I get back for on-line studies. I’m getting to the meat of my subject and spring start my subject of interest not sure how I will do. Medical coding. My commenting will not be to often. Plus I’m trying to get work. My age employers keep saying no. But I’m persistent. Too young to think of SS. I have no pension.

I’ll bet the kids in school don’t LOVE AUGUST!!!

It’s too late for us kids. School starts here next Thursday.

No wait. It’s this Thursday! Where did my summer go? And now it gets cut short.

One reason for summers off is so teachers can go back to school during summer sessions (plural, some colleges have 3) to complete their master’s or keep up their required professional development. Evening courses fall and spring fill up fast and not everythihg needed for the degree is offered then, so for many, summer school is the only way to get the study done so they can keep their jobs.

What Tri-Cities is referenced? Here inTri-Cities area in Tenn (Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City) school stared LAST week. Pretty early even for us.

YOU GO, GIRLS!!!!!

Oooh, Tri-Cities. Us locals know what part of the country she is from. (The atomic part of Washington State.)

And it’s more like two-and-a-half months off. Mid-June (thereabouts) until the beginning of September. Summers off did and still make perfect sense; a time for kids to be kids, to grow, to play, to develop, to see that there’s more to life than school. All this brouhaha about kids forgetting what they’ve learned in the classroom is due, if anything, to ineffective teaching methods. It may not be the teachers themselves, it could be the stuff that’s forced upon them. What Dani Rice said above is just one example. Any problems with child learning and development are not caused by any June-through-August summer vacation.

For that I have no idea Alex.

That’s just wrong, we didn’t start school until usually after Labor Day, and got out in the 2nd or 3rd week of June.

I in NC they start school in August. Luckily I moved there after I had already graduated from HS

I’m with Dani Rice.. Class of ‘52, NYS 180 days in school, rain, shine or a foota snow. We lived, somehow without ’counseling’ at every tragedy..if you were dumb, you got left behind. City/village kids had it best,all they had to do was summer jobs at a ‘neat place’.. Farm boys lived in fear of the Korean war and gettin’ the cows milked on time. But getting 90’s on the Regents Exam was fun, too. Polio? Another matter.

As usual, Alix cuts to the chase .. rotfl!

Not if it’s monsoon season!

Sounds like another reason for parents to not have to raise their children.

“But its a dry heat”…except at this time of year when the monsoons overpower the dryness with nasty humidity (people’s swamp coolers don’t work in high humidity). The only thing good about the monsoons is that it makes awesome thunderstorms… ;)

considering how the girls have two different views about early school, the older girl wants to put a stop to it because she hates school, and the younger girl loves school so much that she wants it to start early.

dont think that will help dear child

All the schools in SW Florida went back last week.

I’m living in middle Tennessee. The kids started school August 5th here.

In eastern WI, where I live, we register for school in early August. In middle school and high school, my kids got their school picture taken, when they registered, even though school didn’t start until September.

2023

MN, school still starts after Labor Day.

The advantage of starting in August is that you get out in May.