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Summer break has come to a close in many districts across
the country and that means it’s time for teachers and students to head back to
school. It also means the articles about school starting earlier
and earlier are appearing in newspapers. This month, we analyze school
calendars for the 2016-2017 school year to answer some key questions.[1]
Is school really starting earlier? How long is the school year for students and
teachers?
When do teachers
start school?
While 90 percent of districts in the database call teachers
back to school in the month of August, start dates for teachers are as early as
July 25th in Cobb County (GA) and as late as September 6th in Boston, New York City, and Rochester.
Sioux Falls is the only district in the database that has different start dates for teachers based on the grade levels they teach. Elementary teachers start back on August 29 while secondary teachers start back on August 30.
Is school starting
earlier?
You often hear people say that school seems to be starting
earlier and earlier. We look at data in 111 school districts over the past five
years, going back to the 2012-2013 school year to see if there is a trend in
teachers starting school earlier.[2]
There is some evidence of a shift towards earlier start
dates. In about half of the school districts (59), teachers are heading back to
school this year anywhere from one to 17 calendar days earlier than in 2012.[3]
Some of this shift may be because dates and days of the week naturally shift
across years. For example, in Fort Worth (TX), school has started
for teachers on the third Monday in August every year since 2012. In 2012, that
was August 20; in 2016, that day is August 15. By our estimation there are at
least 40 districts where, like in Fort Worth, teachers technically start earlier (9 districts) or later (31 districts)
this year than in 2012, but it’s likely due to a natural shift in the calendar
and not to an intentional policy shift.
Sioux Falls has seen the biggest
shift in teacher start dates since 2012 with elementary teachers starting 15
calendar days later this year. In
contrast, teachers in Greenville County (SC) are starting 13 calendar days earlier
in 2016 than they did in 2012. In both cases, the length of the teacher school
year hasn’t changed much; in Sioux Falls teachers are working the same number
of days and in Greenville County teachers are working four more days.
What about the tradition of students starting back to school
after Labor Day? While we do not track student calendars, it is possible to approximate
start dates for students from the teacher calendar. We looked at how many
districts require teachers to report to school the week before or the week of
Labor Day, assuming that students would then be more likely to be starting
post-Labor Day. Over the past five years, about a quarter of the districts in
our sample appear to delay the start of student school year until after Labor
Day.
While there are fewer districts starting near Labor Day in
2016 than there were in 2012 (21 districts compared to 26), this may be because
of fluctuations in the calendar. In 2012, 2013, and 2014 there were no school
days in September before Labor Day, while in 2015 and 2016 there were four and
two days, respectively. This could explain why there was a drop in the number
of districts starting after Labor Day in 2015 and 2016 as some districts may
have policies about teachers starting work the first week of September.
How long is the school
year for students?
As in years past, the
average length of the student school year among districts in the database is
178 days for both elementary and secondary students. The most common length of
school year is 180 days.[4]
Baltimore County has the longest
school year in the database—189 days for elementary students and 190 days for
secondary students. Baltimore County has held this distinction since the 2013-2014 school
year. Joining Baltimore County at the top of the list is Newark where students attend for
185 days this year. Two Louisiana school districts, Caddo Parish and New Orleans, have the shortest
school year for students at 167 days. .
There are 11 districts that have different school years for
elementary and secondary students. In the graph above, we averaged the two
schedules to derive one figure. In most cases, the difference between the two
calendars is only a day or two. One exception is Buffalo, where there is an 11 day
difference in student school year between elementary and secondary students; elementary
students are in school 182 days this year, while secondary students are in school
for 171 days. This large discrepancy comes from the district practice of not
taking high school attendance on days designated for state testing (Regents
Exams).
How long is the school
year for teachers?
While start dates may be trending earlier, the length of the
school year has remained steady. Teachers are in school an average of 187 days
across districts in the database, the same as in 2014-2015.[5]
The District of Columbia and Norfolk (VA) top the list for
longest teacher year, with teachers reporting to work for 196 days and 195
days, respectively. Teachers in Caddo Parishhave the fewest number of work days, working only 172 days.
On average, teachers in Teacher Contract Database districts are
in school about 10 days more than their students.[6]
In other words, the teacher school year is about 5 percent longer than the
student school year, just as it was during the 2014-2015 school year.
In most of the districts, elementary and secondary teachers
are required to be on-site without students the same number of days each year.
In 22 districts, the requirements are different for elementary and secondary teachers.
For example, elementary grades might have more early release days than
secondary grades where teachers must remain on-site for planning or
professional development purposes when students go home early. In these cases,
we averaged the number of days elementary and secondary teachers are required
to be on-site to determine the categorization above.
Have your own questions about calendars? You can access
school calendars and other data by visiting the Teacher
Contract Database.
The Teacher Contract Database includes information on over 145 school
districts in the United States: the 60
largest districts in the country, the largest district in each state, the member
districts of the Council of Great City Schools, and districts which won the
Broad Prize for Urban Education. The database features answers to over 100
policy questions and provides access to teacher contracts, salary schedules,
and board policies in addition to relevant state laws governing teachers.
[1] All
of the districts in the Teacher Contract Database have been included in this analysis
with the exception of Detroit and the two charter management organizations in
the database, Aspire and Green Dot. We have not yet analyzed Detroit’s
2016-2017 calendar and calendars in Aspire and Green Dot vary by school site.
[2] We used any districts currently in the Teacher Contract Database that we had data for going back to 2012.
[3] To download the data used for this portion of the analysis, including a list of the 111 districts, click here.
[4] For our calculations, we count half days for students as full days.
[5] Not included in the graphs in this section is San Diego where we did not have information about the teacher calendar for this school year.
[6] When calculating the number of days teachers are required to be on-site without students, NCTQ’s counts include early release days for students when teachers must remain on site as a half day.
