I don't think schools start too early, but not for the reason stated in the choice. The school calendar we operate from is outdated and based on a society that doesn't exsist anymore. (originally designed so kids could help out in the fields in an agricultural society) Schools should be year round. There is so much we need to teach students now, they need more time to delve deeply into topics and they lose skills over the summer break. It would also help with daycare issues for working parents. Opponents of year round schools say it would cut into summer jobs and hinder teachers from being able to take classes toward advanced degrees--while this might occur for a time, universities and fast food restaurants would soon adjust their schedules to meet the schools schedule--especially when they began losing money.

I like school starting earlier because it means we're out at the end of May. Going through to the middle of June can be excruciating.

I'm a proponent of a year round education system.
In a time when American children are graduating lower and lower in standings in the the 3 R's, I believe it would benefit them and us in society to teach throughout the year, thereby providing longer hours for review of material, hense, better comprehension and retention.
Besides the above, you know what they say about idle hands..., it would cut down on summer boredom's seige of unsupervised restless shenanigans in an age when most parents work in order to keep a roof over the family.

I believe school does start too early. For 12 month employees, there is not enough time away in order to sufficiently rid ourselves of built up stress. In addition, I am from a region of the country where we have experienced the last 12 days of over 100 plus degrees. I also remember achieving excellence with principals working just two weeks after school was out and working two weeks prior to the start of school...the one primary difference... there is considerably more paper work.

In Minnesota our legislature passed a law stating that all public elem./hs must start the day after Labor Day. Why did they do this? Summer tourism is big here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and resort owners (who get taxed to death) need the extra income , thus the late starting date for schools.

In our case it's not agriculture, it's tourism dollars, and personally I'm for the late starting date. August is chock-full of workshops and in-services for teachers around here and with the University of North Dakota in our backyard we have access to a great continuing ed. program that works well with MN and ND teacher schedules.

I really don't know if it's a benefit to kids to start early or have school year round. Personally I think it's the quality of teaching that is needed, not necessarily the quantity of days to teach.

Labor Day until Memorial Day:
Let's just quit wasting so much time in between!

Wouldn't it be great if some of our schools were not quite 24/7 but close to it? We would be able to accommodate so many different schedules and life-style needs. I am in full support of exploring different calendars and days and times of operation to better meet the needs of our families and students. As an earlier responder mentioned, life is different now..we have electricity to light our classrooms and aircondition and heat them. We don't have to all be home before dark. I say we need to provide more options to families that include radical changes in what is considered the "school day".

The Wisconsin law mandating school start dates of no earlier than Sept. 1 were the result of lobbying by the state tourism industry, and were not influenced by any discussion of educational practice, individual communities' desires, or school district energy consumption.

Starting the school year later, even by a few days, requires schools (often without air conditioning) to choose between shorter or nonexistent winter and spring breaks mid-year, or sending the school year into the uncomfortably humid and equally "summer" weeks in June. Our state constitution in Wisconsin mandates the number of days students attend school each year, so unless this detail were changed, there would be an unavoidable domino effect.

Seeing as the legislative push to enact this law was engineered by the same governor who sought at one point to nullify the state Department of Public Instruction and eliminate the (also constitutionally named) position of state Superintendent of Schools, it would not have surprised me if there had been a push to mandate the end date of the school year to occur no later than Memorial Day...

When it's about immediate, surface business interests, the discussion is framed in the interests of protecting "family vacations", despite the working public's declining ability to actually take vacation time, nationally. Conversely, if a push for longer or more thoughtfully constructed school calendars, framed in the interest of actual educational best practice and the learning needs of kids, or on an individual community's local desires, the issue would become one of "tax burden", I'm sure. This doesn't BEGIN to address the districts' desires to up their test scores for NCLB purposes... which a more thoughtfully designed school year might also serve to assist.

In all of this conversation about restricting schools' ability to work to their own best structure, I've seen an increasing incidence of families yanking their kids out of school for vacations in the interest of good deals in Orlando, despite our actual calendar of school session days.

I have been working in a year round school district for the last 9 years and I have found that the breaks give the students and teachers time to recharge and be refreshed for the next go round. I also see less loss of skills over the shorter breaks than what we experience with the traditional long summer break. We are no longer a farming based country and no longer need to adhere to the system of education set up to accommodate working on the family farm.

The comment by Elizabeth Haddon, "Wouldn't it be great..." sounds like (ed)Utopia to me.