My district adopted this calendar model for a few years . We started Aug 1 st and had 2 wk breaks in October and again at Spring Break . Tutoring for students and trainings for teachers were offered during the breaks , but were not utilized by most people in either category . Most enjoyed the breaks the fall one was especially nice because October is quite pleasant here most years , but we did not see any improvement in academics just the opposite , really . The long breaks were just enough to cause kids to seemingly forget everything . We tried sending homework during the break alas , a waste of paper ! What killed it was a bad winter one year , followed but a 2 week heat wave in August . The winter saw us lose 12 days to snow , so to make those days up , they chopped off the second week of spring break . In August , we got 2 full weeks of 105 degree weather , and at the time most bldgs had no AC , so there you go , fall break cancelled ! The next year , our board quietly voted to do away with the calendar and go back to starting 3 rd 4 th week in August and ending first week of June . We recently moved the start up a week and slid the end of school up a week too . The idea there was to get more instruction time in bride the Tests in late April .