Is It Back-to-School Already?
No matter how you package it, back-to-school is a time of transition. Ask most of your students when they want to go back to school and you’ll likely get the same answer, “Not yet.” Ask their parents and you might get a much different answer.
Ever wondered when other districts go back to school? It varies greatly by where a school is located, but in general US schools on the East Coast tend to start in September, while those in the Midwest and West go back in July and August.
Some states like MI, MN, SD, VA, and WV have laws prohibiting schools from starting before Labor Day. Schools in SC and MS can’t start before the third Monday in August, NC and TX can’t start before the fourth Monday. Of course, there are exceptions even within the rule, as sometimes districts can get waivers to start earlier than designated by state officials. Canadian schools keep it pretty straightforward, with all starting the day after Labour Day.
No matter when your school or district goes back, it’s a chance to kick the year off on the right foot. A new year can be a fresh start for the entire school community. It’s also a good check point for districts on how safe their schools are. Take the new school year as an opportunity to see how well you are prepared by looking at the Five Layers of School Safety white paper.
School Safety Was Center Stage at ISTE 2018 in Chicago
ISTE is the largest educational technology show in the US and second-largest in the world. This June, the show set a record with over 24,000 education-focused minds in attendance.
At this year’s ISTE conference in Chicago, attendees packed the West/SchoolMessenger booth to learn about school safety from a district who had been through a school shooting. Stay tuned this fall, as we’ll be talking to this district again in a webinar format, to dive deeper into this incident and the lessons they learned.
And if you want to hear the first webinar, entitled “Lessons Learned from a School Shooting,” you can view the archive on demand on our Resource Central website’s Professional Development Webinars page.