Offset-graders quietly head into the deli at Tulip Grove Unproblematic School in Bowie, Maryland, on Sept. four, 2018. The commune is among the 22% of public school districts that start classes after Labor Day. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Postal service via Getty Images)

It's the second full calendar week of Baronial, which ways 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 nigh correct" or "That seems mode too early!"

When elementary and secondary students go back to schoolDorsum-to-school dates in the United states, it turns out, vary considerably past state and region, based on our assay of a sampling of the nation's 13,000-plus public school districts. By the end of this week, for instance, nearly all elementary and secondary school students in the East South Central region – a Census Bureau division that includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee – will exist back in school. Simply non a single district in the 9 New England and Middle Atlantic states volition resume classes before Aug. 26, and many look until after Labor Day.

The prize for the primeval starting time date amongst the 500-plus districts in our sample goes to Arizona's 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 iii two-week "intersession" breaks starting Sept. 30). At the other extreme are the Trenton, New Bailiwick of jersey public schools, whose well-nigh fourteen,000 students won't become dorsum to school till Sept. 9 – the latest opening date in our sample.

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

Broadly speaking, earlier starts are more common in the South and Southwest: In a crude band of 13 states stretching from Arizona to Florida and up to S Carolina, 79% of the districts we examined will be back in school by the finish of this week. Afterward starts are more mutual 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 have favored later dorsum-to-school dates, arguing that they give families more than time to take vacations and teenagers more time to piece of work summer jobs. For example, since 1986 Virginia'south "Kings Dominion police" (named for the entertainment park just north of Richmond) barred most schools in that state from opening earlier Labor Solar day. Earlier this year, the law was amended to permit districts to open up up to two weeks earlier, so long equally they also give students a four-24-hour interval Labor Day weekend. Still, 6 of the x Virginia districts in our sample are starting their 2019-20 schoolhouse years subsequently Labor Day; two will open Aug. 26, one on Aug. 22, and one (subject to a special provision) on Aug. 12.

To become a sense of when students head back to school, we looked at the x largest local school districts by enrollment in each state (except for Hawaii and the District of Columbia, which accept simply one district apiece). Nosotros too examined additional districts in Texas, Florida and California, so that the terminal 509-district sample would include the nation'southward 100 biggest districts. We excluded private and parochial schools, public charter schools, state-run schools and other educational institutions that oft operate on their own schedules. Our final sample covered about 36% of the nation's 50.six million public elementary and secondary students.

For each district in the sample, we determined the date or dates on which almost of their first-through-12th graders started autumn classes. (Kindergartners often start school later than their older peers.) Although a handful of districts are on some form of year-round schedule, and many others take individual schools that operate twelvemonth-round, nosotros focused on the "traditional" calendars followed past nigh schools in a given commune. When start dates were staggered past school or grade level, nosotros 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 pop get-go week. Another 74 districts (with xiv% of students) went dorsum earlier this summer; 93 (nineteen% of students) will start up again next week.

Just 105 districts (14% of students) won't start until the final calendar week of August – and nearly half of these (48) are in New England or the Centre Atlantic states (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania). An boosted 113 districts (with 23% of students) won't resume classes till after Labor Solar day, all but 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 school earlier than they used to? Finding school calendars from years and decades past for our sample districts proved to be across the reach of this analysis, but there'due south some evidence that more secondary-school students, at least, are spending part of their summers in the classroom.

A separate Pew Research Center analysis institute that U.S. teens are spending more of their summer hours on educational activities – and less fourth dimension on leisure – than they used to.