Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Schools Shouldn’t Open Before Labor Day

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by

Bob Rayner
in , , ,

Oceanfront, Virginia Beach. Photo credit: Kerry Dougherty

by Kerry Dougherty

Better sit down, youngsters. Did you know you’ll only get OUT of school two days earlier than last year? Yep, your last day of classes is June 14, 2024. Last June you finished up on June 16th.

Joke’s on you. Oh, and the teachers who pushed for the new schedule believing they’d get an early start on summer.

Until 2019, Virginia’s public schools were prohibited from beginning before Labor Day. The law, nicknamed the “Kings Dominion Relief Act” was passed in 1986 to boost Virginia’s tourism industry, giving teens with summer jobs a chance to work through the traditional end of summer.

Summer jobs are a good thing. They teach kids the value of hard work and responsibility.

Everyone remembers their first summer job. And that first pay check.

Nothing like it!

The state-wide ban on early school opening was a boon to theme parks, restaurants and a host of tourist attractions across the commonwealth.

The only way a school district could get a waiver to start early was to show that they’d closed for snow for eight days or more for five of the past 10 years.

That wasn’t ever going to happen here in the coastal rain zone. (Snow almost always turns to rain east of Williamsburg.)

Last year the Virginia Beach School Board voted to take advantage of the newly relaxed regulations regarding the start of school, after a survey showed strong support for it.

So Beach teens are back in class. Unfortunately, that includes many of the city’s lifeguards.

According to a piece in The Virginian-Pilot this week, the beaches are understaffed this week because the high school guards are gone. College lifeguards and teachers who work for the life-saving service left earlier this month.

Problem is, it’s still summertime for tourists. Traffic is heavy around the oceanfront and businesses are blitzed. The beaches are still packed with sun lovers and swimmers.

Which other businesses are hurting? Almost all of them, according to the newspaper.

Restaurants are short-staffed. So are bike rental stands, mini-golf, and fishing charters.

This school schedule was a mistake. Lawmakers knew what they were doing when they passed the much-maligned Kings Dominion Relief Act 37 years ago.

The Beach needs to return to a post-Labor Day school opening.

Lives may depend on it. Livelihoods certainly do.

Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited. 

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41 responses to “Schools Shouldn’t Open Before Labor Day”

  1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    I totally agree! The conned everyone into believing kids would be out early.

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Where did the days go? Did they extend the other breaks throughout the year? Are the kids and teachers getting a longer Christmas – sorry, ‘Winter’ -break?

      All of the public schools my son attended started in mid- to late-August every year. And his summer vacation always started near the end of May.

      1. Matt Adams Avatar
        Matt Adams

        I believe they now have falls breaks and spring breaks.

        We didn’t have the former and the latter was Easter break that most times was only a day because snow days ate it in NWPA.

        1. DJRippert Avatar
          DJRippert

          I think that’s right, at least in Fairfax County. Besides walking uphill to and from school in a perpetual snowstorm, I don’t remember any Fall breaks or Spring breaks when I attended FCPS.

          1. Matt Adams Avatar
            Matt Adams

            The only day I was allowed to walk to Elementary school was the last day of the year. We had a girl kidnapped, raped and murdered one Halloween in my home town, so they were a bit skittish after that. The ironic thing about the walk home from school being, it was through a cornfield and it was all of a 0.25 of a mile.

            I spent more time waiting for the Bus to and from school than I did on it.

          2. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            When I was in Virginia Beach public schools, in addition to Christmas/New Years break, they gave us a couple days at Thanksgiving and a couple days at Easter, and that was it.

      2. Kathleen Smith Avatar
        Kathleen Smith

        They can bank time for snow days???

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          Yes, that’s probably at least part of it, but if they don’t use those snow/weather days, does the school year end a few days earlier than originally scheduled?

          1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
            Kathleen Smith

            2 days

          2. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            Thanks.

            It appears they have either lengthened the non-summer breaks, or added days off during the year.

            From before Labor Day to the middle of June is long school year.

          3. Kathleen Smith Avatar
            Kathleen Smith

            My son always had problems in school. He was actually very bright. Every year around AprilMay, his teachers would start the summer school conversation. I always said NO, he needed time to be a kid!

          4. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            Bright or not, kids can and should be taught to follow reasonable rules (not all are reasonable), content mastery being one of them.

      3. Stanwood Avatar
        Stanwood

        In Arlington there are additional days off sprinkled into the school calendar. These are non-Christian or “non-White” holidays: Yom Kippur, Eid-al-Fetr, Eid-al-Adha, Juneteenth.

        With four holidays added you can start a week before labor day and not get out any earlier. I’m not sure if the number of grade prep or professional learning days has grown.

        https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-24-Calendar.pdf

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Might be worth a discussion within the context of longer school years:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92100f2b59ddf2f7c8cbe105ff2645ec01b5d75d6c9d16193e02fda51c859dba.jpg

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9578d04c676f26d1651c9ea6bb98b208e7b9505c855de2a3d9613c8c11026850.jpg

          1. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            It is counter-intuitive to me that the 4-day school week is not more popular in rural districts. They tend to have longer, less efficient, bus routes than do larger more densely populated districts.

            Transportation is a significant part of the cost of running a school system. It seems to me rural school systems would welcome the chance to reduce those costs by up to 20%.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I was under the impression, this was to help the kids recover and catch up from the pandemic, no?

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      I don’t think the total number of days increased. I think some of summer break has been used for other breaks. I’m not sure but I think that’s right.

  3. vicnicholls Avatar
    vicnicholls

    I grew up starting school last week. They’ll live.

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Won’t it interfere with their night jobs shoveling offal at the slaughterhouses?

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      It all goes in the Scrapple vat, kid – every last shovel-full…

      😉

      1. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        Ummm …. scrapple. Lightly floured and fried in butter with a drizzle of maple syrup.

        Breakfast of champions.

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          I never said I don’t like it…

          😉

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            how about Chitterlings since they’re in that same category, eh?

          2. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I’ve never been a big fan of ‘chitlins’.

            And I don’t know why. You are correct about them having more-or-less the same ingredients as Scrapple.

            Different spices, maybe?

  5. Thomas Dixon Avatar
    Thomas Dixon

    If children are forced to get more COVID shots this year, they may get out earlier than expected.

  6. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Nope. This is really good for the schools. Big improvement. The King’s Dominion Bill was all about helping employers and was always bad education policy. And I knew that when I helped defend it…as the Chamber of Commerce lobbyist! My wife would rag me…

  7. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    Better idea. Do away with the one size fits all public schooling. If we are going to fund it, have the money follow the kid and let the parents pick the best option…

  8. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Can’t hammer the schools over poor SOLs and NAEP and then turn around and hammer them for trying to get the kids back on track!

    Seems like no matter what the public schools do, someone is going to hammer them!

    1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      It wouldn’t matter Mr. Larry. Our schools waste the minutes away on a daily basis. The cumulative effect appears in the lousy test scores.
      https://www.baconsrebellion.com/what-the-minutes-say-about-public-education-in-virginia/

    2. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      You resemble that remark.

      Again, the insight of the teacher in my family was that the kids mentally shut down by Memorial Day. The classes into June are worthless. OTOH they start the year paying far more attention and with more engagement. So get them going on things before Labor Day.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        My teacher friends tell me that some kids, typically those on the lower margins lose a lot
        more over the summer ( or any longer break) than others and that when they finally do return
        it takes weeks to get them back to where they were before the break.

        And Virginia schools have been hammered over the NAEP data… and yet, here we are
        hammering them again for attempting to get back to a better place.

        The boo-birds don’t give a rat’s behind about public schools other than to wish them harm.

        There are no optimistic paths forward from these folks other than private/non-public schools
        which have far less transparency on standards and results AND are INCLUDED in the NAEP data that shows academic losses from the pandemic.

  9. kls Avatar
    kls

    I thought Biden’s Border Bums were suppose the fix the worker shortage?

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      He has if you are trying to get your house painted or a fence built. I haven’t had an English speaking crew in for a job in years. But they will need to learn a little English to be lifeguards. 🙂

      1. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        I haven’t had an English speaking crew in for a job in years. But they will need to learn a little English to be lifeguards

        What? Everybody knows the English word “Help!”…

        😉

  10. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    More “Plantation Elite” logic. Because a few isolated areas within Virginia have substantial summertime tourism business, the entire state should be prohibited from starting school before Labor Day. Based on that silly theory (and, no doubt, some serious campaign contributions from theme park owners), the all-powerful, all-knowing General Assembly forbade localities from making their own decisions about when they could open their schools. After many years and much gnashing of teeth, the General Assembly relented and made it a local decision.

    And don’t be fooled … the “no school before Labor Day” rule for the entire state was not aimed at student employees, it was aimed at student customers and their parents.

    “This school schedule was a mistake. Lawmakers knew what they were doing when they passed the much-maligned Kings Dominion Relief Act 37 years ago.”

    They did know what they were doing – pandering to a few well heeled businesses by taking away educational authority from the localities.

    Your problem is entirely with the Virginia Beach authorities, Kerry. Don’t drag the rest of the state into your parochial issues.

  11. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    I think each locality should decide for itself when its schools open.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Of course they should.

    2. Not Today Avatar
      Not Today

      SHOCKING!! You don’t want to turn school opening/closing dates into another partisan ‘war’. I’m in awe.

  12. Not Today Avatar
    Not Today

    Do schools exist to provide labor for tourist-related businesses?? News to me. I suppose the learning loss issue is to be sacrificed on the altar of capitalism? Shame on you. These priorities are jacked up!

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      The one legitimate point she has in favor of Virginia Beach schools opening after Labor Day is traffic. Traffic can be a nightmare in the city any time of day during the tourist season. Post-Labor Day it smooths out a little.

  13. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    Nothing more that public welfare for businesses. A late start gave students less time before SOLs. And many kids need the time. Once the SOLs are completed, there is very little done in school.

    A group of parents in Fairfax County, including our family, simply stopped vacationing in Virginia when the Kings Dominion law was in effect. Needless to say, it was only symbolic. Our dollars were spent in other states.

    We stopped in the late 1990s. Last February, my wife and I (no longer residents of Virginia) spent a fun weekend in Williamsburg. It was our first vacation dollars spent in the Old Dominion since the late 1990s.

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