September Is the Month for School to Begin

On the way home the other evening, I was listening to some of my CD’s when “See You in September” by the Happenings began playing. That group and the song in particular were favorites of mine. In fact, the summer of my freshman year in high school, my twin brother Jim, the boy across the street, Mike Mier, and I walked and thumbed our ways to Chilhowee Park to see them in concert. No, it wasn’t a smart thing to do, but we were young, foolish, and most of all, adventurous.

The song is about a couple who say must say good bye at the end of the school year. The boy sings that he’ll be alone each and every night and that he’ll write. He says they’ll be together again in September unless a summer love takes the girl away.

To me, it’s backwards to lose contact with a girlfriend over the summer, maybe during the rest of the year, but not for summer. Perhaps the song is about a college couple. Regardless, the title belongs to a different era—MINE.

In the good old days, school let out the first part of June. For the next three months, students escaped the confines of classrooms. They hung out at the pools, cruised the drive-in restaurants, and watched movies at the drive-in theater. School opened its doors the day after Labor Day. That’s in September. By then, kids were ready to get back to school. Some had grown weary of the summer activities; others were tired of working a summer job that usually included too much manual labor. It was time to get on with education—football and basketball games, sock-hops, and flirting. Oh, some were actually eager to return to the grind of homework and learning.

These days, summer isn’t much different from the rest of the year. Teens have access to vehicles that allow them to visit with each other all the time. When they are out of town, cell phones and computers keep them in touch with each other through Twitter and Facebook. School functions aren’t so important to today’s teens. The last several years that I taught high school, the only dance after a game occurred during homecoming.

Still, kids need a longer break from school. The demands on kids today are crushing. They are required to know more and score higher than any previous generation. A student must earn more than twenty credits for graduation, and then he or she must pass the state proficiency exam.

With all that’s laid upon their heads, it seems only fair that students be given a summer break that lasts until September. Move the school year so that kids don’t get out of school until June, and then let them escape until the dog days of August have past. That way, they too can enjoy the song “See You in September.”