Houston, TX

House Bill 1, which the governor signed into law in May of 2006, included a provision that denied any waivers for an early school start date and established that school may not begin before the fourth Monday in August.

This provision, which takes effect this month, is a compromise. Senator Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville) has been working for more than a decade to reinstate the traditional school year, which was repealed in 1990. The traditional school year would always begin after Labor Day.

Proponents of the traditional school year movement say that the majority of Texans prefer a traditional school year. They also claim that a traditional school year decreases operating costs for school, doesn’t negatively affect student performance and achievement, positively benefits the entertainment and travel industry, and helps children of migrant workers miss less school.

Some teachers I spoke with were less enthusiastic. Although they heard the theory behind the movement, they felt it didn’t apply in actuality.

“The longer the break, the longer the student readjustment to school and school schedule,” one teacher, who preferred to remain anonymous, told me.

“If the long break is supposed to benefit teachers to prevent attrition and burn-out, that’s interesting since I’ve been working all summer as a teacher, not in a second job, and am starting school tired already,” said another.

“I worked in a school district that was closer to year-round,” the first teacher said, “We found that teaching new material, then taking a short break, then returning for review and testing was a very successful teaching method. Kids don’t retain it across three months, though. We also found that the tutoring sessions worked better for improved performance over summer school sessions.”

“I prefer a consistent start date,” said one mother, who is also a teacher, “I work in one school district and my children attend school in another. For a while, we had to deal with two different times school started. That gets complicated.”

This difference in opinion is reflected in the membership of the Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA), “Members held different opinions, so the association did not take a position on the school start date issue at this time,” explained Joe Bean of TSTA.

However, two education groups did oppose the mandatory school start time in House Bill 1: Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) and the Association of Texas Professional Educators (ATPE). Adam Rondeau of ATPE said, “ATPE opposed the legislation because individual school districts are best suited for determining when school should start based on local need.”

Why, then, did the state feel a need to mandate a state-wide start date?

Supporter Senator Lucio explains, “School Districts retain flexibility on: School start and end dates, when to set semesters, when to set holidays and vacations, when to set staff development/in-service days. The state sets the number of classroom instruction days, classroom size, the zero tolerance policy, bilingual programs, the TAKS test, and hundreds of other mandates. Why would any of these mandates be acceptable to this body in spite of local control, but setting a school start date would not? And my mandate doesn’t even fall under the category of an unfunded mandate.”

Other supporters cite consistency as their main consideration, “It provides consistency and predictability to children who are moved within the state, state to state and who have parents serving 2 and 3 tours in Iraq,” states information from the supporting position by The Military Child Education Coalition.

Senator Lucio concurs with the consistency and predictability factor, among others. Doris Sanchez, Press Secretary for Senator Lucio, wrote, “The Senator’s main concerns for introducing a later start date were to give families more summer time and to give migrant students an opportunity to start the beginning of school closer to their peers’ starting times. They often return from working up north in September and miss many weeks of school. Energy costs were certainly a factor. Research on air quality was not conclusive, but certainly a factor since the highest ozone days are usually in the summer and adding more buses and cars to the traffic could potentially increase the ozone.”

The data supports both sides of the discussion since most of the supporting information is projection and theory. Nevertheless, the data was compelling enough to gain both Democrat and Republican support. Therefore, school will begin on August 27, 2007, the fourth Monday in August. This provided a lengthy summer, but many parents—such as those whose summer included travel plans—didn’t mind.

“We loved being able to spend six weeks out of state with family. I can’t believe it’s time for school already,” said a stay at home mother.

Senator Lucio’s office agrees and also endorsed the bill to assist working parents, “Families find it easier and less costly to find childcare in block periods as opposed to one- or two-day increments throughout the year. Longer summers provide more opportunities to visit with extended family members who pass down traditions and family values.”

Texas schools collectively remain in the bottom half of the nation’s rankings for proficiency and achievement. Proponents of the traditional school year maintain that the schools in the top percent of rankings begin later, in late August or September, and suggest that a later date can improve performance, although the two pieces of information are not definitely linked.

Because the start date is now law, all groups will follow it. The only allowed exception to the rule is in Section 25.084, which provides an exception for a year-round system.

school, start of school, school calendar, House Bill 1, school start date, back to school