I’ve been a part of the Atlanta Public School system since I was 5 years old. I’ve climbed the educational ladder from elementary school at Mary Lin, to middle school at Inman, to my third year here at Grady. Instead of the parent handholding of elementary school I’m driving myself to school and managing my education largely on my own. Much has changed since my first day at APS, but one change that has consistently been made since my younger years is how ridiculously early the start of school is every August.
I remember my first day of kindergarten being the second week of August, making this year starting on Aug. 4 an almost two-week change in date from when I began in APS. While APS students sat in school, a majority of other Atlanta students had at least another week left of summer.
Our summer break has not necessarily been shortened, however; we are still returning to school in the middle of Atlanta’s sweltering hot summer. Despite the break being basically the same, the early dates in August seem as if our summer is shrinking.
APS seems to slowly be transitioning to a year-round schedule. With this change, we may have the same vacation days, but student’s summer break has been shifting forward. Summer vacation allows students to have many life experiences. These range from working, to going to camp, to traveling. If this break is pushed forward even more, these opportunities may be cut away because they may extend past our vacation days.
Some Georgia public school systems start the same day as APS, including Cobb, Decatur, and Cherokee. However others such a Dekalb and Fulton started Aug.11. Most of the Atlanta private school started even later than this.
I’m envious of my peers outside of Grady who go back to school weeks later than us. For example, The Paideia School started school 15 days after Grady started, on Aug. 19, and The Westminster Schools started back 9 days later on the 13th. Of course these students were released for their summer vacation later than us, but their break coincides with the true dates of summer.
Is APS going to continue to push the starting date earlier and earlier? Is it going to be sending students to school in July? If this is the case then we might as well change the name of our vacation to second spring break. It won’t truly be summer break anymore if we’re spending practically two full months of the summer in school.
Many of my peers have also complained about school starting so early. Maybe instead of continuing to push our start date forward, APS could move our release date back a week to give us more summer break. This could result in less animosity from students and is a more logical placement for our summer holiday.
If the other Atlanta schools start later, why don’t we do the same? The push back of a week doesn’t really seem like a big deal, but in the eyes of a student the later dates appear to be a longer summer. School starting early only really causes unrest among the students, so pushing it back to where it was 10 years ago is a benefit for not only APS, but for its students.
