Growing up, I have memories of going to school super early in the morning.  This is when I was in Elementary School and it seemed like we were out pretty early in the afternoon.  It wasn't until I was older that I realized (or was told rather) that it was because the school I was attending was on split sessions.  Basically we had a second set of students that would attend in the afternoon. The area that we lived in was new and I'm sure that it was the District's was of attempting to ease overcrowding.  Of course, that was nearly 30 years ago.  Nowadays the answer is to go to year round school.  I must say, from purely a family perspective, I'm not much of a fan. I understand the arguments in this story about retaining knowledge, and doing better and tests, but some days I feel like I need to hire a Hollywood Talent Manager just to help my wife and I keep the kids school schedule straight. This next year it is going to be even worse and over the next few years it will only compound for our family.  If we were on a traditional schedule it would make things significantly better that's for sure.