… and kids who stay home from school sick do it on Monday or Friday (obviously so they can extend their weekend) instead of Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday 40% of the time? No, I don’t have anything better. I might guess with Labor Day and other events, 15 actual days of classes at the beginning of school might go into four weeks.
I think the confusion is that three weeks would be 21 days on the calendar, but in this case Baldo is only counting actual school days. With 5 days of school per week, 15 days would be three weeks. In other words, this is a (mathematical) identity crisis.
P.S. It’s about as funny as saying, “The thermometer says that it is -40°C, but it feels like -40°F.”
P.P.S. This strip is dated 31-Aug-2018, but I think it should have ran in late September. How many American school districts have already been in session for three weeks? Don’t most US schools still start on the Tuesday after Labor Day?
He could have been distracted by playing Fortnite.
Kilby has it. 15 days of school is 3 weeks of school.
Kilby: Only northern schools start after Labor Day. South of the Mason-Dixon (and maybe even in Pennsylvania) schools routinely start in August so that the year ends well before the summer solstice.
Perhaps our French speakers can confirm that “quinze jours” (lit. “15 days”) is the normal way of saying what Americans or English call “two weeks” or “a fortnight” (the last being of course derived from “14 days/nights”).
@ Powers – Since you mention the “line” – I know from experience that Maryland normally starts the first week of September, but occasionally bumps forward into the last week of August, depending on how holidays fall. Virginia has (or used to have) a law forbidding a school start date before Labor Day. In unofficial local parlance, this was referred to as the “Kings’ Dominion sustanance rule” (referring to a popular amusement park).
Yes Kilby has it. My only confusion was the header. It’s common for kids to not enjoy having to go to school, and it’s also common to perceive something one doesn’t enjoy as taking longer than it actually has. So where do you get “the system has so completely failed him”?
In the past few years several Chicago schools have started the second week of August. One year, I think even the public schools started the week before Labor Day. I don’t have any students this year who are starting that early, but then, I have fewer students this year.
I really like the Baldo strip. Yes, the son is sometimes a little stupid, and the daughter is precocious (there’s a trope there somewhere) but the characters all care about each other, and the humor is very gentle.
Kilby has it.
I would compare it to “What date is The Fourth of July this year?”.
It’s mildly chuckle-worth.
Mark M: “So where do you get “the system has so completely failed him”?” I think he is claiming the schools failed him for not teaching him how to realize that 15 days is 3 weeks. That’s … maybe a little meaner than called for.
(What I find weird is “3 week” sounds a lot less tedious to me than “15 days”.)
@ Mark M – I think Bill interpreted the joke as “Baldo is so ill-informed that he doesn’t even know that ‘15<>3*7‘, so that school must be doing something wrong.”
P.S. One of the reasons for school calendar “bloat” (at least in the D.C. suburb in which I grew up) is that at some point during elementary school, they suddenly decided to add all of the major Jewish holidays into the school calendar. We all thought this was an excellent idea (especially those of us who did not have to go to Temple on those days). It wasn’t until close to the end of high school that I learned that the state mandated a minimum of 180 school days per year (plus 5 extras in case they had to close for snow), so those “extra” holidays were not “free”: they were carved out by padding extra length onto either end of the school year. Dragging the year into late June wasn’t a good idea, so they sometimes had to start the last week of August.
When I lived in California, school did indeed start the first Tuesday after Labor Day. I see that start day this year for my old school district is August 22, a short week after Norway’s school year started.
When I was in school here, classes didn’t start until September. Now the same school district starts in early August.
August 9th, to be precise. I found a school calendar online.
A few years ago, my nephews had the worst summer vaaction ever: their school district switched from day-after-Labor-Day-to-end-of-June to mid-August-to-June 1, giving them less than 6 weeks off.
They’ll probably be telling this story to their kids along with accounts of walking to school barefoot in the snow.
(Despite living in southern California)
. . . and walking uphill both ways!
Here in Colorado, school started August 15, so the third week is indeed just finishing up.
@Kilby: I noticed that you said a date in the first week of September could be bumped forward (and not back) into the last week of August. Do you use that metaphorical direction pretty generally?
There are supposed to be cultures that do consistently treat time that way, and there’s a lot of internal logic to it in that you can “see” into the past, but not into the future, so it makes sense to think of ourselves as facing towards the past with our backs to the future, backing into it blindly. But I associate forward in time to further in the future, and backward in time with further in the past.
The University of Minnesota (Twin Cities campi) start classes just after Labor Day. There have been proposals to begin earlier, but it won’t happen: the Minnesota State Fair (a very big deal here, with huge attendence and traffic tie-ups) runs through Labor Day, and the fairgrounds are adjacent to the St. Paul campus, share parking spaces, etc., so there is no way St. Paul classes can begin earlier, and hence neither can those at the (much larger) Minneapolis campus.
I think my northern Minnesota grade/high school always also started just after Labor Day, and let out just before Memorial Day, but it’s been a long time and my memory may be faulty. (Leaving a full rich summer for us farm kids to pitch in as slave labor on said farms.)
I grew up in the north, have lived in Virginia for over 30 years. This year, for the first time, our schools started the week before Labor Day. Sacrilege!!!
I have to comment on states indicating things through license plates. With my security/privacy hat on, I can only see that as evil; an excuse for a cop pulling you over–“You’re not from around here, are you, son?” and the like. What’s a non-evil use case?
A dozen years ago, New Jersey came up with the brilliant idea of requiring any car driven by a teenager to have a little red sticker in the corner. You know, to make the driver a target for cops trying to make their ticket quota (at best), and predators (at worst).
This law was so widely ignored that I remember standing in line at the DMV when my son was getting his license, discussing with another parent how neither of us was going to accept the sticker, with a cop standing right alongside us.
Up here in the North, some of the schools start in August, because of snow days.
You know, those days when the snow is so bad you have to cancel school. Those days have to be made up at the end of the school year.
Actually I suppose you have snow days down South too. I’ve seen the videos of cars skidding out of control when there is a half millimeter of snow on the ground.
Here on Kaua’i, the school year started the second week of August and goes well into June, (at least it did last year.) They don’t have snow days here (duh), but they do have hurricane days (two so far, already, this year.). Although, iirc, there is a pretty long winter break.
Remembering… My grandfather lived in New York City and also had a home upstate. He specifically registered his car upstate since that’s where he was most likely to be speeding and he figured that would reduce his chances of getting a ticket.
Yes, that’s the sort of driver he was.
Honest to God, sometimes I wonder how any of us made it to adulthood.
@ Kundor – Spatial and temporal directions are a tricky subject when you are talking to an ex-pat American living in Germany. It depends on your point of view. In the case of the calendar, I was thinking of it not from the current date, but from the standpoint of a summer vacation that’s about to get shortened. In other words, moving the start of school “up”, or forward within the year.
I have often had minor difficulties when discussing spatial relationships with Germans while driving. From the standpoint of the car, a German will point way “down” the street (in other words, “forward”), but describe that location as “back there” (“da hinten“). The section of the street that has already been passed (behind the car) is then called “da vorne” (“up front”).
Over the years I have been able to get used to any number of teutonic irregularities, but this particular bit of linguistic usage is so “bass-ackwards” that I simply refuse to play along. What is in front of the car remains in front of the car, and the road already travelled is behind the car, period.
Two years ago, the governor of Maryland issued an executive order requiring schools to open after Labor Day and close by June 15. It was pretty clearly intended to benefit the Eastern Shore (i.e., Ocean City) tourist industry.
Kilby, is it possible that before cars Germans traveled only in rowboats?
your mistake was thinking ” Baldo” might be funny. :)
Kilby – As opposed to their other theme park – Busch Gardens?
Schools here on LI traditionally start the Wednesday after Labor Day and run until the end of June. (In NYS schools have to run through the state Regents exams for high school/ some junior high classes.) NYC on the other hand would traditionally start on the Monday after Labor Day as they did not need the 3 snow days that the LI districts added in, on the logic that students lived closer to schools in NYC and if they did not, the subway would run and take them to school. Over the past several years NYC has actually had to close school a few times. In this area we also have another school vacation – there is summer, “Christmas”, Easter, and Winter. Winter is the week with Geo Washington’s birthday, observed, and was started in the 1970s during the energy crisis so that they would not need to heat the schools as much that week.
The Jewish high holy days (3 days worth) in September or October and Passover in March or April normally have been given as days off since I was in the higher elementary school grades. Passover is generally given at the same time as the Easter break,but sometimes takes a lot of juggling to find the days needed when they are not at the same time. (Robert used to have to do the schedules for the agency/school of which he was director).
Rather recently districts, NYC included, have been adding Lunar New Year, Hindu, and/or Muslim holidays and have been having a scheduling problems. While legally they can start school before Labor Day most do not want to do so, and some cannot due to teacher union contracts.
What I don’t understand, is that I can understand districts in cold, snowy places starting early and ending late due to the need for snow days, it seems to me that areas that are hot would want to start in September when it is cooler than it is August.
Schools here have a 2 month summer vacation, based on when someone on another group said their schedule is there (where, I forget but US) there is a 3 month vacation. Someone on a blog I was reading had to pick up her son at the start of April from college?
Mitch4: “15 jours” =(15 days) means 2 weeks, indeed. Also works in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Possible explanations: 15 days ~ 1/2 a month ~ 2 weeks; or, when counting the 2 week period, we include the current day.
Comics I Don't Understand 
… and kids who stay home from school sick do it on Monday or Friday (obviously so they can extend their weekend) instead of Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday 40% of the time? No, I don’t have anything better. I might guess with Labor Day and other events, 15 actual days of classes at the beginning of school might go into four weeks.
I think the confusion is that three weeks would be 21 days on the calendar, but in this case Baldo is only counting actual school days. With 5 days of school per week, 15 days would be three weeks. In other words, this is a (mathematical) identity crisis.
P.S. It’s about as funny as saying, “The thermometer says that it is -40°C, but it feels like -40°F.”
P.P.S. This strip is dated 31-Aug-2018, but I think it should have ran in late September. How many American school districts have already been in session for three weeks? Don’t most US schools still start on the Tuesday after Labor Day?
He could have been distracted by playing Fortnite.
Kilby has it. 15 days of school is 3 weeks of school.
Kilby: Only northern schools start after Labor Day. South of the Mason-Dixon (and maybe even in Pennsylvania) schools routinely start in August so that the year ends well before the summer solstice.
Perhaps our French speakers can confirm that “quinze jours” (lit. “15 days”) is the normal way of saying what Americans or English call “two weeks” or “a fortnight” (the last being of course derived from “14 days/nights”).
@ Powers – Since you mention the “line” – I know from experience that Maryland normally starts the first week of September, but occasionally bumps forward into the last week of August, depending on how holidays fall. Virginia has (or used to have) a law forbidding a school start date before Labor Day. In unofficial local parlance, this was referred to as the “Kings’ Dominion sustanance rule” (referring to a popular amusement park).
Yes Kilby has it. My only confusion was the header. It’s common for kids to not enjoy having to go to school, and it’s also common to perceive something one doesn’t enjoy as taking longer than it actually has. So where do you get “the system has so completely failed him”?
In the past few years several Chicago schools have started the second week of August. One year, I think even the public schools started the week before Labor Day. I don’t have any students this year who are starting that early, but then, I have fewer students this year.
I really like the Baldo strip. Yes, the son is sometimes a little stupid, and the daughter is precocious (there’s a trope there somewhere) but the characters all care about each other, and the humor is very gentle.
Kilby has it.
I would compare it to “What date is The Fourth of July this year?”.
It’s mildly chuckle-worth.
Mark M: “So where do you get “the system has so completely failed him”?” I think he is claiming the schools failed him for not teaching him how to realize that 15 days is 3 weeks. That’s … maybe a little meaner than called for.
(What I find weird is “3 week” sounds a lot less tedious to me than “15 days”.)
@ Mark M – I think Bill interpreted the joke as “Baldo is so ill-informed that he doesn’t even know that ‘15<>3*7‘, so that school must be doing something wrong.”
P.S. One of the reasons for school calendar “bloat” (at least in the D.C. suburb in which I grew up) is that at some point during elementary school, they suddenly decided to add all of the major Jewish holidays into the school calendar. We all thought this was an excellent idea (especially those of us who did not have to go to Temple on those days). It wasn’t until close to the end of high school that I learned that the state mandated a minimum of 180 school days per year (plus 5 extras in case they had to close for snow), so those “extra” holidays were not “free”: they were carved out by padding extra length onto either end of the school year. Dragging the year into late June wasn’t a good idea, so they sometimes had to start the last week of August.
When I lived in California, school did indeed start the first Tuesday after Labor Day. I see that start day this year for my old school district is August 22, a short week after Norway’s school year started.
When I was in school here, classes didn’t start until September. Now the same school district starts in early August.
August 9th, to be precise. I found a school calendar online.
A few years ago, my nephews had the worst summer vaaction ever: their school district switched from day-after-Labor-Day-to-end-of-June to mid-August-to-June 1, giving them less than 6 weeks off.
They’ll probably be telling this story to their kids along with accounts of walking to school barefoot in the snow.
(Despite living in southern California)
. . . and walking uphill both ways!
Here in Colorado, school started August 15, so the third week is indeed just finishing up.
@Kilby: I noticed that you said a date in the first week of September could be bumped forward (and not back) into the last week of August. Do you use that metaphorical direction pretty generally?
There are supposed to be cultures that do consistently treat time that way, and there’s a lot of internal logic to it in that you can “see” into the past, but not into the future, so it makes sense to think of ourselves as facing towards the past with our backs to the future, backing into it blindly. But I associate forward in time to further in the future, and backward in time with further in the past.
The University of Minnesota (Twin Cities campi) start classes just after Labor Day. There have been proposals to begin earlier, but it won’t happen: the Minnesota State Fair (a very big deal here, with huge attendence and traffic tie-ups) runs through Labor Day, and the fairgrounds are adjacent to the St. Paul campus, share parking spaces, etc., so there is no way St. Paul classes can begin earlier, and hence neither can those at the (much larger) Minneapolis campus.
I think my northern Minnesota grade/high school always also started just after Labor Day, and let out just before Memorial Day, but it’s been a long time and my memory may be faulty. (Leaving a full rich summer for us farm kids to pitch in as slave labor on said farms.)
I grew up in the north, have lived in Virginia for over 30 years. This year, for the first time, our schools started the week before Labor Day. Sacrilege!!!
I have to comment on states indicating things through license plates. With my security/privacy hat on, I can only see that as evil; an excuse for a cop pulling you over–“You’re not from around here, are you, son?” and the like. What’s a non-evil use case?
A dozen years ago, New Jersey came up with the brilliant idea of requiring any car driven by a teenager to have a little red sticker in the corner. You know, to make the driver a target for cops trying to make their ticket quota (at best), and predators (at worst).
This law was so widely ignored that I remember standing in line at the DMV when my son was getting his license, discussing with another parent how neither of us was going to accept the sticker, with a cop standing right alongside us.
Up here in the North, some of the schools start in August, because of snow days.
You know, those days when the snow is so bad you have to cancel school. Those days have to be made up at the end of the school year.
Actually I suppose you have snow days down South too. I’ve seen the videos of cars skidding out of control when there is a half millimeter of snow on the ground.
Here on Kaua’i, the school year started the second week of August and goes well into June, (at least it did last year.) They don’t have snow days here (duh), but they do have hurricane days (two so far, already, this year.). Although, iirc, there is a pretty long winter break.
Remembering… My grandfather lived in New York City and also had a home upstate. He specifically registered his car upstate since that’s where he was most likely to be speeding and he figured that would reduce his chances of getting a ticket.
Yes, that’s the sort of driver he was.
Honest to God, sometimes I wonder how any of us made it to adulthood.
@ Kundor – Spatial and temporal directions are a tricky subject when you are talking to an ex-pat American living in Germany. It depends on your point of view. In the case of the calendar, I was thinking of it not from the current date, but from the standpoint of a summer vacation that’s about to get shortened. In other words, moving the start of school “up”, or forward within the year.
I have often had minor difficulties when discussing spatial relationships with Germans while driving. From the standpoint of the car, a German will point way “down” the street (in other words, “forward”), but describe that location as “back there” (“da hinten“). The section of the street that has already been passed (behind the car) is then called “da vorne” (“up front”).
Over the years I have been able to get used to any number of teutonic irregularities, but this particular bit of linguistic usage is so “bass-ackwards” that I simply refuse to play along. What is in front of the car remains in front of the car, and the road already travelled is behind the car, period.
@Kilby
Two years ago, the governor of Maryland issued an executive order requiring schools to open after Labor Day and close by June 15. It was pretty clearly intended to benefit the Eastern Shore (i.e., Ocean City) tourist industry.
Kilby, is it possible that before cars Germans traveled only in rowboats?
your mistake was thinking ” Baldo” might be funny. :)
Kilby – As opposed to their other theme park – Busch Gardens?
Schools here on LI traditionally start the Wednesday after Labor Day and run until the end of June. (In NYS schools have to run through the state Regents exams for high school/ some junior high classes.) NYC on the other hand would traditionally start on the Monday after Labor Day as they did not need the 3 snow days that the LI districts added in, on the logic that students lived closer to schools in NYC and if they did not, the subway would run and take them to school. Over the past several years NYC has actually had to close school a few times. In this area we also have another school vacation – there is summer, “Christmas”, Easter, and Winter. Winter is the week with Geo Washington’s birthday, observed, and was started in the 1970s during the energy crisis so that they would not need to heat the schools as much that week.
The Jewish high holy days (3 days worth) in September or October and Passover in March or April normally have been given as days off since I was in the higher elementary school grades. Passover is generally given at the same time as the Easter break,but sometimes takes a lot of juggling to find the days needed when they are not at the same time. (Robert used to have to do the schedules for the agency/school of which he was director).
Rather recently districts, NYC included, have been adding Lunar New Year, Hindu, and/or Muslim holidays and have been having a scheduling problems. While legally they can start school before Labor Day most do not want to do so, and some cannot due to teacher union contracts.
What I don’t understand, is that I can understand districts in cold, snowy places starting early and ending late due to the need for snow days, it seems to me that areas that are hot would want to start in September when it is cooler than it is August.
Schools here have a 2 month summer vacation, based on when someone on another group said their schedule is there (where, I forget but US) there is a 3 month vacation. Someone on a blog I was reading had to pick up her son at the start of April from college?
Mitch4: “15 jours” =(15 days) means 2 weeks, indeed. Also works in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Possible explanations: 15 days ~ 1/2 a month ~ 2 weeks; or, when counting the 2 week period, we include the current day.