The longest “summer” ever

This phrase/clause/sentence – call it what you will – also applies to summertime in late August and early September as day and overnight camps are no longer operating, parents have run out of activities, and kids are starting to get bored. Perhaps, as the Christmas carol says, the parents can hardly wait for school to start again.

I wish that I could say that hope is on the way for Boston Public School families in the summer-autumn of 2026 to start earlier this year, but it isn’t, even in this remarkable year with a virtually unprecedented stretch between Memorial and Labor days. I realize that I complained about the late start last year around this time, but in this, the LATEST in which Labor Day can occur, September 7, the BPS administrative staff has decided to stick with its theory that school for grades 1-12 pupils will not open until after Labor Day – this year September 8, with kindergarten children reporting even later.

This is a tradition with BPS, usually not opening until after Labor Day no matter when Labor Day occurs – always the first Monday in September. (The cynical side of me says the purpose of this delay is to elongate the summers of central administrators from BPS owning homes on the Cape and in Maine.) This year Memorial Day has occurred the earliest it ever could (May 25, the last Monday of May) and Labor Day the latest, providing Americans with the longest “summer” ever, 116 days. Granted that school does not get out on Memorial Day but for all practical purposes the amount of actual learning that occurs in classroom after what my father used to call Decoration Day is decimated with festive barbecues, late sunsets, after-supper sports, and warm weather, all undermining academics.

Kudos to suburban school systems who have decided not to wait until almost mid-September to open their public schools for children. Norwood students for instance, report September 2, Brookline September 3, Newton September 2, and – are you sitting down? – Lexington August 26.

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This late start for Boston also means that the last date – barring any snow days – comes very late in June of 2027, thus delaying the opening of municipal swimming pools and perhaps after summer camps have already begun. As Charley Brown would say, “Aaaaargh!”