How Back-to-School Start Dates Vary Across the U.S.

It’s mid-August, and many students are already back in school. Others haven’t started back-to-school shopping yet and won’t step foot on school grounds until late this month or early September. It turns out that start dates vary across the country, depending on the region.

The Pew Research Center conducted a study in 2023 to determine the diversity of school year start dates in the United States. To do this, researchers collected a sample of start dates from 1573 random schools for the 2023-24 school year. The data set was limited to K-12 public schools in America.

According to the study, the vast majority of students were already back in school by August 7 to the 18th. The trend of earlier start dates was especially apparent in southern states. More than two thirds of students in the U.S.'s East South Central region—which includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee—returned to school the week of August 7. In the West South Central region—comprising Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas—94 percent of students went back to class between August 7 and the 18th.

July 17 to the 28th was the earliest and most uncommon time frame, with 1 percent of students coming back to school on these dates. Students living in the Northeast got the most out of late summer. Nearly all public school kids in New England resume their studies on or after August 28. Most pupils in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania didn’t have to start classes until sometime between September 5 and the 8th.

These results raise the question of why there’s such variation in back-to-school start dates. One major factor is the heat and how people deal with it in different parts of the country. Historically, populations in the Northeast have been more concentrated in urban centers compared to the South, and prior to the advent of central air, keeping cool in the city during the hottest months was a challenge. Many families dealt with this by fleeing their apartments for summer vacations in cooler, less-crowded parts of the country. As a result, districts had to wait until their students were back in the area before bringing school back in session.

Another factor is legislation. Some states have laws requiring schools to open during specific windows. For example, most districts in Minnesota don’t start until after Labor Day. 

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