Because it’s already early August, and school is about to start for most students in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, some individuals (especially educators) already consider summer to be a thing of the past this time of year. Many people, however, argue that Labor Day marks the end of summer, while others stick to what the calendar says and believe the autumnal equinox signifies the changing of one season to the next.
Dallas-area resident and high school teacher Megan England has multiple options for what could determine the end of summer for her, depending on what lens she’s looking through to decide.
“As a teacher, it’s the first day back of professional development,” she said. “As a Texan, it’s the first day the high is 90–95. As a person, it’s maybe the first sweatshirt-needing morning.”
But one thing is for certain for England on what the end of summer truly means.
“[It’s] the end of careless, lazy, freedom-filled days,” she said. “And no more sweating walking to my car.”
Dallas-area resident Steve Bergsman does not work in education, but because of memories from his childhood and adolescent days, he also thinks of summer fading in the rearview mirror when school begins and players return to the gridiron.
“I currently align the end of summer with the beginning of football season (gig ‘em, by the way),” he said. “For me, this is rooted in the concept of grade school summer vacation. Whenever school started back up, that’s when my life would change. I’d have a bedtime, homework, and essentially a loss of freedom. Hence, the end of summer.”
For different and similar reasons, Dallas resident Brice Pearce also sees the start of the school year as the end of summer, as his kids must return to their classroom routines, and there is not as much free time for everyone.
“Family vacations are harder to take, and it’s not as easy to justify taking three-day or four-day weekends just because,” he said.
A parent of three children, Dallas-area resident Rachel Balthrop Mendoza said even though summer is technically over on the autumnal equinox on September 23 this year, she knows that the date is actually a bit more fluid.
“More so, it’s whenever school starts, because all of the routines have to get reset,” she said. “But here, summer doesn’t really end until October. It’s hot. No one ever said Texas livin’ was easy. We’re made from stronger stuff to ensure we get through our summers.”
Pearce said he thinks many people mark Labor Day as the conclusion of summer because schools in other regions of the nation (such as in the Northeast and on the West Coast) do not begin school until after Labor Day. And despite his belief that summer is no more when school begins, he also thinks that the temperatures in certain parts of the country dictate when individuals can officially declare summer to have ended.
“I’d argue that the summer is longer in the Southwest and the South, in general, and that as long as the high is 90+, it’s summer,” he said.
On the autumnal equinox, two moments occur when the sun is exactly above the equator, and day and night are of equal length, and this is supposedly when the season changes from summer to fall. However, England said, according to her grandpa, Labor Day signaled the end of the summer harvest.
“Farm kids were needed to harvest (and that’s why we are out during the summer), so once that was over, school could start again,” she said. “So, he felt Labor Day could have been any month, but they put it in September to honor farmwork.”
Dallas-area resident Josh Odegard is a firm believer that Labor Day marks the end of summer, but he uses a different form of logic to justify his reasoning.
“The end of summer is Labor Day weekend—that’s not a question,” he said. “Anybody who has seen Dirty Dancing knows that Labor Day weekend is the end of summer. And that nobody puts baby in a corner.”
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