The back and forth on back to school

Norman Draper

Star Tribune

January 31, 2005

All you kids who felt cheated out of your last days of summer last year could get your payback next fall.

Bills introduced by two resort-area legislators would prohibit schools in Minnesota from starting before Labor Day.

"I see no reason at all why kids can't go back to school after Labor Day," said Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker. He and Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, are the bills' chief authors. "For years, Minnesota and all the Midwestern states agreed that schools shouldn't start before Labor Day and should end sometime in the first week of June so kids could go home and help on the farm. ... Why not let kids for that part of summer just be kids, the way we grew up in the '50s and '60s? You could just be kids and have fun. And after Labor Day you went back to school."

Oh, there would be the occasional exception. If a school construction schedule makes it easier to start before Labor Day, then that's allowed, for instance. Otherwise, no school would have the right to poach on the last holiday of the summer.

Indeed, back before the year 2000, Minnesota law did prohibit schools from starting before Labor Day. The idea was to benefit resort owners who were being hurt when their student helpers took off for school before the last big weekend of the season.
Early school starts also were putting a dent in their Labor Day business. There were exceptions to the rule when Labor Day fell on a late date.

In 2000, the law was changed so that schools could start no earlier than Sept. 1. That gave school boards and superintendents more flexibility with their school year calendars. But resort owners say it's also meant a drop in business.

"At one time, schools closed Memorial Day and didn't open before Labor Day," said Dave Gravdahl, general manager of the Breezy Point Resort in Breezy Point. "That really helped the outlying areas a lot. ... It's not just for the resorts. It affects every business in northern Minnesota. ...That one extra week is really important for us."

Gravdahl said when the law requiring schools to start after Labor Day was passed, business boomed. When it gave way to the Sept. 1 law, business dropped off. The biggest loss was in family business spread out over that final week before Labor Day.

Last year Labor Day fell on Sept. 6. That led to a patchwork of starting dates for the 2004-05 school year. Students in Bloomington, Mounds View, Minneapolis and Osseo started school Sept. 1. Anoka-Hennepin, Wayzata, St. Paul, and Rosemount/Apple Valley/Eagan schools didn't open their doors until Sept. 7.

Schools of thought

Shoreview resident and Mounds View schools parent Anne Howard would rather start school before Labor Day if it means an earlier end in June.

"This year, we did start early, but we get out June 3," she said. "One year, we went until mid-June and it was a disaster. It's easier to get the kids to start early than to go halfway through summer."

Mounds View Superintendent Jan Witthuhn recalled the year when the district started school late and let kids out June 16. Plenty of kids, parents and teachers remember that, too. Not fondly.

"One of the biggest comments we've gotten from teachers, parents and students is, 'Please, don't make us go to the sixteenth of June this year,' " she said. "There are fewer people who have raised objections about starting before Labor Day." The district, she said, is in the process of drafting its calendar for next year. She said about half of her neighboring districts have already set their calendars.

"I feel it's one of those items best left to local control," she said.

But some parents think there's no way kids should have to end their summers before the Labor Day weekend.

"I would like to see [summer vacation] between the two holidays: Memorial Day and Labor Day," said Maple Grove parent Phil Levang, who has three kids in the Osseo district. "It encourages people to take those vacations, it's good for the economy, it promotes tourism. ... If a person or a family plans on taking a vacation that last weekend, [an early school start] ruins it."

Howes said if his bill becomes law, it would take effect immediately. But he is open to a one-time exemption for districts that have already approved 2005-06 calendars.

Both Howes and Ruud come from places that depend heavily on the summer tourist industry. Both have been getting earfuls of complaints from innkeepers and resort owners about schools starting before Labor Day.

"Tourism is our number one industry," Ruud said. "When kids have to go to school before Labor Day, it takes out our whole labor force; the resorts are full of guests and there's no one to work there."

The point was driven home to Ruud in a personal way.

"My own home school in Pequot Lakes started before Labor Day this year," she said. "I had resorters who kept their kids out of school."

To read the bills, go to www.startribune.com/137. Type in HF 205 for the House bill and SF 307 for the Senate bill.

Norman Draper is at ndraper@startribune.com.