SOMWaD: Hot, Hot HOT! Back To School

Just last week I was blogging about how the summer season is over; if not officially, at least scholastically.  Traditionally, most schools in my area (the NY tristate), start after Labor Day.  This year with Labor Day being "so late" (the last possible day it could be and still fall on the first Monday of the month), local school start ups are a complete mish mosh!  Some started Monday.  (School in AUGUST?!!  What has this world come to???)  Some start Wednesday or Thursday.  Then there are those "lucky" ones who don't go back until September 8, 9 or even 10!  Seems like this school year is going to have an interesting calendar when trying to coordinate with other school districts.  (Because of the early start this year, summer vacation will begin on the 17th of June in 2016!)

I have no problem with going back to school before Labor Day.  My kid has had over 9 weeks of vacation.  He's kept very busy.  (Thanks to this obsessive SOMWaD.)  However, as the (calendar) summer winds down, it's time for his to get back into the school groove.  This year will be very different for him (and for us) as he moves from elementary school to middle school.  This means longer days; especially the three days a week where he will be participating in early morning music classes (known in these parts as "Period 0") and will need to be in class by 7:40.  (Killer, I know.  Been reading lots of articles about starting school later in the day and here we are starting on Period 0 days before 8.  It gets even early in high school when Period 0 begins at 7:10.  But all that is a blog for another day.)

With all these changes, however, I think that one of the biggest challenges now is the heat!  As I can recall (and I know I'm getting old), this summer has not been too hot (temperature wise that is).  Sure we've had our heat waves of 90+ degrees, but they have not been as bad (in my memory) as previous years.  (Specifically 2010 comes to mind!)  I've been pleased to experience plenty of nights this summer with only a fan needed to keep cool.  But the heat has come blasting back just in time for the start of school.  My local weather forecast has temps in the 90s and upper 80s for the next 10 days.  I may be sitting in a freezing cold office building for most of the day, while my son and his friends sweat it out.  Not feeling good about that, but not much I can do.  (Other than keeping him hydrated with a water bottle.  Fill it with a little water and a LOT of ice which is completely melted by the time he gets to school!)

I'd suggest that it would be better to start school later in September and end later in June, but this year also brought hot temperatures back at the end of June.  (The last day of school was a scorcher followed by more hot days the following week while my son was trekking the battlefields of Gettysburg with his grandparents).  So I have no solutions.  The weather is the weather and just when we think we're on the cusp of autumn, summer comes roaring back.  (And on the flip side, how many times were we teased with warm weather earlier in the season only to be pushed back with chilly temperatures.)  I will, however, make sure my son is dressed is appropriate clothing.  (Collared shirts may be fashionable, but light t shirts and shorts are going to be a must.)  I will encourage him to drink water and to refill BEFORE he heads home.  (His friends have a long uphill walk.)  And I suppose during the really hot days, providing him with a couple of dollars so that he can stop at the town ice cream parlor wouldn't be all that bad.

We'll all survive these hot, Hot, HOT back to school days.  And before I know it, I'll be bitching about the cold.  (Sigh.)



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