Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for August 15, 2016

qué una lástima

I live on the costa. My nieta, nietos, and all the other kids, started the school year in May. For all the kids living in the sierras, school begins around the 29th of August or 5th of Sept. All of the schools require the students to wear uniforms – including the colegios ( high schools ). They really look sharp in their various school outfits.

Old school here; school should end by Memorial Day and not start before Labor Day. I don’t care what anybody says.

I see.

Oh shut up!

I actually did that for 9th grade Algebra.

(Yawn…) old joke. Dull humor. Not funny.

Our school was – and still is here – from the Wednesday after Labor Day through the end of June. State exams for middle school/high school do not start until the 2nd or 3rd week of June and the elementary schools run through the same period without the exams.

I don’t get the logic of starting school in the heat of August unless the school was in, say, North Dakota and they need the extra time for snow days in winter and will run through to June. It is bad enough for kids to go to school in (generally unair conditioned buildings) in June and sometimes September – August is just cruel punishment. RIght now – and I am in the north east – it is running over 95 degrees and what is called the “real feel” (and it is these days) is over 100 – how much learning can be done in weather like this?