It’s never easy for students, or teachers, to have to return to class following the two-week Christmas vacation, but this year in many area school districts the return will be a lot tougher.

In previous years, the end of the first semester has coincided with the start of the holiday break, meaning students could start fresh with the start of the new year. But a new law mandating that school not start until the last week of August made that coordination impossible, and in many school districts, including the Northside ISD in San Antonio, students returned with finals staring them in the face.

 “It is going to be a challenge for the kids, as well as the teachers, to get back into the swing of things,” the Northside ISD’s Pascual Gonzalez said.

For years the legislature, prodded by the state’s powerful tourism industry, has been attempting to push back the start of the fall semester. But school districts, trying to keep the symmetry in place of the first semester ending at the end of the calendar year and the second semester beginning at the start of the new year in place, have resisted the changes.

“They forced us to start later on, and we didn’t start classes this year until the last week in August, August 27th,” Gonzalez said.

In the Northside school district, the first semester doesn’t end until Friday, and final exams started Monday. Boerne ISD avoided the problem by drastically cutting back on the number of school holidays in the first semester, and cutting Thanksgiving break to just two days, and was able to finish the semester before Christmas. 

Gonzalez says that’s not the best situation and blames the legislature.

“This is a direct result of the legislature not listening to school people, and not letting local school districts exercise local control and set their own start date,” he said.

The affect of the new law will be felt again at graduation time. Since all districts in the region end at the same time, there won’t be enough facilities available to stage all of the schools’ graduation ceremonies.  Some ceremonies will take place on weekday mornings, while others will take place as long as three weeks after the end of the semester.