First-graders quietly head into the cafeteria at Tulip Grove Elementary Schoolhouse in Bowie, Maryland, on Sept. 4, 2018. The district is among the 22% of public school districts that start classes later Labor Day. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

It's the second full week of August, which means millions of American schoolkids are heading back to school or have already started. And depending on where you live, that statement might produce a reaction of either "That sounds about right" or "That seems way too early!"

When elementary and secondary students go back to schoolBack-to-school dates in the United states of america, information technology turns out, vary considerably past state and region, based on our assay of a sampling of the nation'south xiii,000-plus public schoolhouse districts. By the end of this week, for example, nearly all uncomplicated and secondary school students in the East South Cardinal region – a Census Bureau division that includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee – will be back in school. But not a unmarried district in the ix New England and Center Atlantic states will resume classes earlier Aug. 26, and many wait until later Labor Day.

The prize for the primeval start date among the 500-plus districts in our sample goes to Arizona'due south Chandler Unified Schoolhouse District, which serves part of suburban Phoenix. The 44,000 or so students in Chandler Unified went back July 23 (though they get the first of three 2-week "intersession" breaks starting Sept. 30). At the other farthermost are the Trenton, New Jersey public schools, whose about fourteen,000 students won't go back to schoolhouse till Sept. 9 – the latest opening date in our sample.

In the U.S., first day of school varies by region

Broadly speaking, before starts are more common in the South and Southwest: In a rough ring of 13 states stretching from Arizona to Florida and up to Southward Carolina, 79% of the districts we examined will be dorsum in school by the terminate of this week. Later starts are more common along the East Coast (from Maine to North Carolina), the upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan) and the Northwest (Oregon and Washington).

Historically, the tourism and hospitality industries accept favored later dorsum-to-school dates, arguing that they give families more fourth dimension to accept vacations and teenagers more time to work summer jobs. For example, since 1986 Virginia'due south "Kings Rule law" (named for the amusement park just north of Richmond) barred most schools in that land from opening before Labor Day. Before this year, the police force was amended to allow districts to open upwardly to two weeks earlier, then long as they too give students a four-twenty-four hour period Labor Twenty-four hour period weekend. Still, six of the 10 Virginia districts in our sample are starting their 2019-xx schoolhouse years after Labor Twenty-four hours; two will open Aug. 26, one on Aug. 22, and one (subject field to a special provision) on Aug. 12.

To become a sense of when students head dorsum to school, nosotros looked at the x largest local school districts by enrollment in each land (except for Hawaii and the Commune of Columbia, which accept only one commune apiece). We also examined additional districts in Texas, Florida and California, and then that the final 509-district sample would include the nation'southward 100 biggest districts. We excluded individual and parochial schools, public lease schools, state-run schools and other educational institutions that often operate on their own schedules. Our terminal sample covered virtually 36% of the nation's 50.vi million public elementary and secondary students.

For each district in the sample, we determined the appointment or dates on which well-nigh of their first-through-12th graders started fall classes. (Kindergartners ofttimes outset school afterward than their older peers.) Although a handful of districts are on some form of year-round schedule, and many others have individual schools that operate yr-round, we focused on the "traditional" calendars followed by almost schools in a given district. When start dates were staggered past school or class level, we used a date range.

All told, 124 of the districts in our sample (representing 29% of students) are starting school between Aug. 12 and Aug. 16, making it the most popular outset calendar week. Another 74 districts (with 14% of students) went back before this summer; 93 (19% of students) will start upwardly again next week.

Only 105 districts (14% of students) won't start until the last week of August – and about one-half of these (48) are in New England or the Middle Atlantic states (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania). An additional 113 districts (with 23% of students) won't resume classes till after Labor Twenty-four hours, all only 22 of which are north of the Mason-Dixon line. (The 22 exceptions are in nearby Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.)

Are students going back to schoolhouse earlier than they used to? Finding schoolhouse calendars from years and decades past for our sample districts proved to be beyond the achieve of this assay, but there'southward some testify that more than secondary-school students, at least, are spending office of their summers in the classroom.

A split Pew Research Heart analysis found that U.S. teens are spending more than of their summer hours on educational activities – and less time on leisure – than they used to.