It was the night of that family dinner that always happens before a bar mitzvah and I was standing sleepily when suddenly my little cousins attacked me. Driving down all the way from New York, I asked them if they had missed school to come visit. But all I got were confused looks.

“School doesn’t start until Monday!”

I was shocked. Here I was, still recovering from the effects of waking up at 5:55 a.m every day, Monday through Friday, for the past week, whilst my cousins looked perfectly rested and ready for adventure. After a few minutes of processing this information, I realized that Montgomery County should follow the example of my cousins’ New York school and our Virginia neighbor of Fairfax County by starting school later in the year and getting out later in the year.

The end of summer is the most precious time of the whole season; you look at the family calendar and see you have two weeks left to fit everything you never did into that short span of time. It is the last few weeks for parents to plan beach weekends and car trips to Philadelphia. For me, August is summer-time and September marks the start of school. Even Harry Potter goes to school on Sept.  1. Federal regulation states that schools need to be in session for a minimum of 180 days; when those days take place over the course of the year is up to the school systems. So, why not leave summer to be summer, and extend school a few days later into June?

The last few days of school are spent watching movies, finishing projects or taking exams. The aftermath of school ending usually takes a few days of adjustment anyway, for teachers and students. Teachers need to finish grades and dismantle the classroom they so meticulously set up. Students take this time to plan out their summers and catch up on the sleep they never got during the school year. I myself take the first few days to recuperate and de-stress. My mom takes that time to schedule carpools and finish signing up for camps. So summer does not start off with a bang anyway. It slowly inches its way in.

The school system should stop starting school in August because it is the time for treasuring the memories of the past three months. Montgomery County, please don’t take away the end of the best time of the year.