How pre-Labor Day school start dates might hurt Maryland businesses

Summertime can be a make or break time for tourism-based businesses across Maryland.

But what happens if people stop coming at the busiest time in the season?

For business owners such as Michelle Knopp, an Ocean City restaurant owner, August can make "the biggest difference."

For two years now Knopp and her husband, Tom, have benefited from a post-Labor Day start to Maryland public schools. The move by Gov. Larry Hogan has added thousands of extra dollars in income to their bottom line.

Now that could change after the state legislature overrode Hogan's order with a new law this spring. That has Knopp worried.

“We are so seasonal down here, so an extra two weeks can literally sometimes make or break you, and I know it doesn’t sound like much to people that don’t live on the Eastern Shore or don’t live in Ocean City, but it’s everything — those extra two to three weeks can bring can make the biggest difference,” said Knopp, who owns Ocean City restaurant Bull on the Beach. 

But Knopp's bottom line isn't the only hit she's nervous about. If school systems start shifting their calendars back to starting before Labor Day, Knopp said she's worried that many of her high school workers will have to leave right when she may need them the most.

Knopp said nearly 70% of her staff are college or high school students. In the past couple years with schools starting after Labor Day, Knopp said her business has seen a 20-30% increase in sales.

For many years the decision of when schools start in Maryland wasn’t a political debate.

That changed in 2016 when all schools were ordered to start after Labor Day. But now a new law giving school districts the right to form their own calendar has business owners concerned.

At the time of the announcement three years ago, Hogan said he did it to benefit Maryland’s economy, teachers and families. The governor's office said a post-Labor Day start would add $74.3 million in direct activity to Maryland's economy, $3.7 million in new wages and $7.7 million in state and local tax revenue. 

The measure was not universally well received with the state legislature, though.

Legislation passed in March restoring school districts' rights to form their own school calendars regardless of the what the state wants. 

“When the governor put the executive order in saying you couldn’t start until after Labor Day and must end by June 15, I thought he put the interest of Ocean City and business owners ahead of children and our schools,” said Maryland State Sen. Paul Pinsky (D-Prince George's County), who sponsored the bill to allow school systems the option to change the start date.

BACKGROUND: Maryland battle over school start date flares up anew

BACKGROUND: Gov. Hogan reacts to legislators pushing back against school start date

BACKGROUND: 'A systematic dismantling of summer': Ocean City reacts to school start data change

Right now many public school systems across Maryland have not set their 2020-21 calendars yet, but nearly a dozen say they are exploring or have finalized plans to start before Labor Day. On the other hand, three counties indicated that they were looking to start after Labor Day next year.

But as the holiday approaches this weekend, businesses across the state that rely on tourism will still be able to benefit from a universial post-Labor Day start. The future, however, may be very different.

Knopp said schools starting later allows her business to better handle the mid-August time when the college students go back to school. Instead of being short-staffed, Knopp said she can hire high schoolers to fill in the gaps.

“Let’s put it this way —  when you own your own business, you are constantly worried about everything, and sales and staffing are two of your most important things,” Knopp said. “If they start schools earlier, it’s actually a double hit. We’re losing the sales and the staff.”

Maryland joins a growing number of states

Across the country, states handle when public schools start in different ways, according to the Education Commission of the States. Forty states don’t have any mandate on when public schools start.

While 11 states do have mandates in place, only three (Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin) require schools to start in September. The other eight, including nearby states like Virginia and North Carolina, require schools to start in August.

For many years, Virginia required its public schools to start after Labor Day. The law in Virginia, commonly known as the King’s Dominion law, required schools to open after Labor Day unless the school system received a waiver. The reference to Kings Dominion, an amusement park north of Richmond, refers to the notion that the law was passed to benefit Virginia's tourism industry. 

Virginia’s state legislature changed that law this year, moving the mandate from September to August. The new mandate requires schools to start no earlier than 14 days before Labor Day, according to the Virginia Division of Legislative Services.

Robert Mcnab, director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University, said he's studied the effects of the King's Dominion law and what impacts it would have if it was repealed. His study on the topic happened in 2018, before the legislature changed the law.

Mcnab said when controlling for certain factors, the study established that the law had very little effect on education and if repealed would have small impacts to the state's tourism industry.

“In my personal opinion, what we see is sort of states go back and forth between local control and state control,” Mcnab said. “When we see more state control, we see greater dissatisfaction at the local level because people can’t adjust to local preferences. When you have too much local variation, then you have dissatisfaction at the state level because you may school districts that are disadvantaged or have unequal outcomes.”

Historically speaking, many schools start around Labor Day because of the country’s agricultural past, said Jennifer Rice, dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland. Many farmers needed their children to help tend to their fields, and much of that happened in the summer.

From an educational perspective, Rice said the Labor Day “cutoff” hasn’t been shown to have any effect on a student’s ability to perform better on standardized tests.

Rice said she believes that local jurisdictions generally have a better idea of what their communities need, and because of that may be better at forming schedules than the state. She added that what may work for one county can sometimes be detrimental to others, which makes setting the calendar on a state level difficult.

“It can become an interesting conversation when we talk about before or after Labor Day or before or after Memorial Day or how long breaks are during the school year,” Rice said. “What really matters is that we’re providing 180 days or more of good instruction to kids.”

Political fight over school calendars shifts from Annapolis to local boards

As Senate Bill 128, commonly known as the Community Control of School Calendars Act, worked through the legislature this spring, Hogan expressed his displeasure for what the body was doing.

In particular, after the Maryland House of Delegates passed SB128, Hogan called the bill “a thinly veiled attempt to manipulate the will of our citizens.”

Sixteen days after Hogan’s comments, the Maryland state Senate passed its own bill with enough votes to override any possible veto by the governor.

Now, more than six months later, Hogan saidthat his 2016 executive order worked to benefit teachers who had summer jobs as well as for kids and families across the state.

Hogan added many people misinterpreted the executive order as benefitting only Ocean City. He also pointed to the fact that “76% of all the people in Maryland are in favor of school after Labor Day,” adding “most states do school after Labor Day.”

“I think most counties are not going to do that (change to start schools before Labor Day) because the vast majority of their citizens, somewhere between 70-80% want to keep it after Labor Day, they love it after Labor Day,” Hogan said while walking down the Ocean City Boardwalk on Aug. 16. “I think they’re only going to be a couple counties that try to change it, and the ones who do, all of their school board members will be voted out of office.” 

Maryland State Comptroller Peter Franchot said starting schools after Labor Day is something that Maryland families “love” because it’s “predictable.” 

Franchot said now that the legislature moved the issue of setting school calendars back to local counties, “any local jurisdiction (that) changes it to before Labor Day, they are going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“We’re telling them to watch out, because they go ahead and do that and there’s going to be consequences because it’s crazy to change it even though the public loves it so much,” Franchot said. “In addition, it’s good for the economy and guess what — the economy pays for the education program.”

State Se. Pinsky, who sponsored the Senate bill that overrode Hogan’s executive order, said school systems should establish their own calendars.

Pinsky said because of the way the calendar shakes out next year, many school systems wouldn’t have been able to meet the 180-day requirement if they had to start after Labor Day and finish before June 15. 

“You have to do what makes sense, not just what makes business sense for one jurisdiction. Again, I don’t want Ocean City to suffer, I want them to thrive. But you don’t put public school policy a distant second to behind one seasonal industry,” Pinsky said.

This fall, school systems across the state will be working to set their 2020-21 school calendars. For the counties that are considering a return to a pre-Labor Day school start, officials said their reasons for the potential move vary.

Mia Perlozzo Cross, public information officer for Allegany County Public Schools, said weather affects the county's decision of when to start school. Because the county sees so much inclement weather during the year, starting earlier helps counteract those days of lost instruction.

Katie O'Malley-Simpson, director of communications for Charles County Public Schools, says the county had traditionally started before Labor Day prior to Hogan's executive order. 

"We conducted a survey a couple of years ago, and our community was almost evenly split on whether we should open before or after Labor Day," O'Malley-Simpson wrote in an email. "Starting after Labor Day and closing by June 15 caused us to reduce our spring break from a week to several days. With a before Labor Day start, the board has restored spring break to a week in the 2020-21 school year."

Tourism hubs across Maryland worry about new education policy’s impacts

Hogan signed his executive order in 2016, but it took effect during the 2017-18 school year.

In the two years since, Melanie Pursel, the president of the Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, said businesses have seen a positive impact.

Pursel said Ocean City data indicates the town has seen a positive impact with schools starting later. The room tax collection was up 6.6% and the tourism-coded sales tax was up 8.3% in August of 2018, Pursel says.

Ocean City isn’t the only tourist destination in Maryland that reported higher August numbers last year because of the calendar change, said Ruth Toomey, executive director for the Maryland Tourism Coalition, based in Annapolis.

For example, Toomey said the Maryland State Fair saw an increase in sales because kids didn’t have to go back to school so early.

“Deep Creek too is also seeing an increase in their hotel stays and people enjoying Deep Creek Lake during those last two weeks,” Toomey said.

Garrett County is the home of Deep Creek lake, one of Maryland's biggest tourism areas.

Nicole Christian, president of the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce, said she understands it’s only two weeks to most people, but for businesses that rely on tourism, it’s two of the busiest weeks of the entire tourism season.

Christian said she isn’t expecting to see any negative impacts from the legislature’s decision until Aug. 2020. For businesses in Garrett or Washington counties, those impacts could look like less interest in vacation rentals in the two last weeks of August.

“You have to remember that we have such a short summer season. Whether it’s (the) Deep Creek Lake area or it’s Washington County or it’s Ocean City summer, and this is traditionally for a lot of destination communities, summer has a much higher economic impact on your community,” Christian said.

In Garrett County, Christian said the county saw an 11% increase in the county accommodations tax collection in August 2017 and a 24.2% increase in August 2018. The county also saw a 53% increase in the heads on beds data and jumps in sales tax collections.

“This would be compared to telling ski resorts ‘Sorry we’re going to tell visitors they can’t come for the two weeks during your peak season,’ ” Christian said.

Why Ocean City businesses are worried about the change

Tom  Tawney, owner of the Cayman Suites, said a few years ago his hotel would run at around half full with guests in late August when school would start before Labor Day. Tawney’s hotel was filled at 90-100% during the years where public schools started after Labor Day, he said.

“It’s thousands of dollars of more income for the hotel and it generates a lot of tax dollars also. I’m just a small property. The bigger hotels have the same impact,” Tawney said. “You can tell with the amount of traffic throughout the city and everything that there’s definitely a lot more tourism here when the schools start after Labor Day.”

He added, “It’s definitely going to dramatically affect my bottom line."

But the impacts of the legislature’s decision affects more than hotels and restaurants in Ocean City. It also has a significant impact on the town’s Beach Patrol.

Butch Arbin is not only the captain of the Ocean City Beach Patrol, he is also a teacher in Charles County.

Arbin says he has 22 teachers on his supervisory staff that have to leave in mid-August because of their teaching responsibilities.

Taking away Beach Patrol supervisors means some of the lifeguards with the most experience have to leave before the summer crowds diminish, Arbin said. That impact intensifies when college students leave the stands around the same time, and at that point Arbin says the Beach Patrol is forced to take lifeguard stands off the beach.

Arbin said last year on Aug. 13, there were 91 lifeguard stands on the beach. Two weeks later, there were 32 stands, separated by 600 yards, or about five city blocks.

“Taking stands off the beach is important because that (makes) the distance between stands greater. It’s harder for a guard to cover a big distance,” Arbin said.

For business owners like Knopp, she hopes school systems continue to start school after Labor Day. 

"I don't know when it changed. At least when I went to school everybody started that Tuesday after Labor Day. I felt like that was almost nationwide," Knopp said. "Somewhere it changed and all the sudden they were going back in August."