Mine Ride Construction Update

englanddg

One Little Spark...
It's only 9 days here, because it's book-ended by 2 weekends. Only five actual days out of class, unless they add the P.A. Day at the front.

For fun, I just googled it. Apparently the dates here vary by province.
That's similar to here then. I was not counting weekends, since the kids have those off anyway...
 

englanddg

One Little Spark...
I've never seen spring break tied to easter. Most schools in the US that I am aware of just have a week in March which is their typical week. Texas schools are always on break the second or third week in March.
Interesting... I went to 10 different school districts growing up, and they were all like that (tied to Easter). None of them were in TX though!

My daughter in MD has hers starting April 14 and ending the day after Easter. That's also how the Georgia schools do it...

Also, remember my line of work for 11 years and 60 stores around the country...spring break is something you pay attention to when you run a Chuck E Cheese! (Grin)
 

dreamscometrue

Well-Known Member
Is that an American thing?

In Ontario, March Break is not tied to the Easter weekend in any way. March Break starts (and has since I started school 36+ years ago) the 2nd Saturday of March and runs for 9 days. Occasionally, the Friday before is deemed a P.A. Day, thereby making it a 10 day break.
My son's b'day is March 12, and generally fell during March Break. My nephew's b'day is the 15th, and 100% of the time occurred during the break.

In New Brunswick, our March Break has always been the first full week of March (ie: the 2014 'March Break' has Feb. 28th as the last school day and return to class March 10th.) But, neighbouring provinces have different breaks. Because ours is so early, we've often gone to WDW and crowd levels are light to moderate. I assume they pick up soon after we come home though.
 

ratherbeinwdw

Well-Known Member
My husband's school has Spring Break in March. Our daughter's university has SB the first week of April, and the public schools here have SB the week before Easter. All these dates in one city. It makes it hard to plan vacations.
The dates are different every year.
 

ratherbeinwdw

Well-Known Member
When I was growing up, Spring Break was called Easter Break, and it was only two days plus the weekend. It was the same for Thanksgiving. It had just gone to three days -plus the weekend--for Thanksgiving when I quit teaching to homeschool my daughter back in 1997. It didn't go to a full week until several years later.
 

dreamscometrue

Well-Known Member
Our daughter's university has SB the first week of April, and the public schools here have SB the week before Easter.

in Canada, most universities (if not all) end their regular academic year in mid to late late April (it's all done by then, including exams), so we tend to have university study breaks in early to mid March as well.

Btw, I have to ask my American friends why they all refer to universities as 'college'. They have names like 'Florida State University', 'University of Nevada Las Vegas' and 'Harvard University'. But when you talk to someone from the U.S., they talk about 'going to college'. It's even called 'College Football', but it's university football. :confused: (In Canada, colleges and universities are both post secondary institutions, but have different course offerings, program lengths, etc.)
 

Bob

Bo0bi3$
Premium Member
Interesting... I went to 10 different school districts growing up, and they were all like that (tied to Easter). None of them were in TX though!

My daughter in MD has hers starting April 14 and ending the day after Easter. That's also how the Georgia schools do it...

Also, remember my line of work for 11 years and 60 stores around the country...spring break is something you pay attention to when you run a Chuck E Cheese! (Grin)

My family has a condo at one of the beaches here in TX and they've been renting it to spring breakers for 20 years. 10 years prior to that, we also lived 30 miles from the condo (which is at one of the most popular spring break destination places in the US). They get students from all over the country. Its pretty much the same every year. The first of them tend to start showing up the last week of Feb. The first week of March it gets busier, the second and third week the place is a mad house. The last week of March and the first week of April are usually much quieter.
 

englanddg

One Little Spark...
in Canada, most universities (if not all) end their regular academic year in mid to late late April (it's all done by then, including exams), so we tend to have university study breaks in early to mid March as well.

Btw, I have to ask my American friends why they all refer to universities as 'college'. They have names like 'Florida State University', 'University of Nevada Las Vegas' and 'Harvard University'. But when you talk to someone from the U.S., they talk about 'going to college'. It's even called 'College Football', but it's university football. :confused: (In Canada, colleges and universities are both post secondary institutions, but have different course offerings, program lengths, etc.)
It is just common vernacular. There is a distinction. College refers to post secondary education that has a specific focus and / or offers only under-graduate studies. To qualify as a university, postgraduate studies are also offered. The exact requirements are spelled out by the different accreditation organizations.

If. I were to guess where it comes from though, until the last twenty years or so where we've seen massive expansions at local schools, most cities had colleges only...so, unless you got into a private or large state school, you probably were not going to a university...rather a college. Hence the term (again, just a guess). Most schools now, at least here in Georgia, are Universities...but this transition happened at a rapid pace in the last 15 years or so...
 

englanddg

One Little Spark...
My family has a condo at one of the beaches here in TX and they've been renting it to spring breakers for 20 years. 10 years prior to that, we also lived 30 miles from the condo (which is at one of the most popular spring break destination places in the US). They get students from all over the country. Its pretty much the same every year. The first of them tend to start showing up the last week of Feb. The first week of March it gets busier, the second and third week the place is a mad house. The last week of March and the first week of April are usually much quieter.
Well, I guess the answer then is..."depends"? (Grin)
 

Nemo14

Well-Known Member
Here in New England most schools have the 2nd or 3rd week of April off, regardless of when Easter falls. Lately though it seems that some of the schools around my way though are eliminating the February and April breaks and just having one week in March instead.
 

ratherbeinwdw

Well-Known Member
in Canada, most universities (if not all) end their regular academic year in mid to late late April (it's all done by then, including exams), so we tend to have university study breaks in early to mid March as well.

Btw, I have to ask my American friends why they all refer to universities as 'college'. They have names like 'Florida State University', 'University of Nevada Las Vegas' and 'Harvard University'. But when you talk to someone from the U.S., they talk about 'going to college'. It's even called 'College Football', but it's university football. :confused: (In Canada, colleges and universities are both post secondary institutions, but have different course offerings, program lengths, etc.)
A college is simply an educational institution. Many schools such as our local school had college in it's title for years. Several years back they changed it to university. When I graduated, the school was called Columbus College. It was later changed to Columbus State University. There are other definitions for college, but in the US, we do tend to slip between the two words. I wouldn't say, "My daughter goes to university." I would say, "My daughter goes to college." Others probably use university.
 

dreamscometrue

Well-Known Member
It is just common vernacular. There is a distinction. College refers to post secondary education that has a specific focus and / or offers only under-graduate studies. To qualify as a university, postgraduate studies are also offered. The exact requirements are spelled out by the different accreditation organizations,

There are other definitions for college, but in the US, we do tend to slip between the two words. I wouldn't say, "My daughter goes to university." I would say, "My daughter goes to college." Others probably use university.

Interesting...thanks for the replies.

To the best of my knowledge (I live in New Brunswick, but did my post secondary degrees in Ontario and Nova Scotia), we never slip back and forth between the 2 terms because they have completely different meanings. We use the word university always, to refer to university...'My daughter's away at university." "John graduated 3 years ago from university." "Which university did you go to?". We use college often as well, but it tells people that we are NOT referring to a university or degree granting institution, but a college, which typically has longer academic years and trains people for the workforce with 2-3 year year diploma programs.
 

Wikkler

Well-Known Member
in Canada, most universities (if not all) end their regular academic year in mid to late late April (it's all done by then, including exams), so we tend to have university study breaks in early to mid March as well.

Btw, I have to ask my American friends why they all refer to universities as 'college'. They have names like 'Florida State University', 'University of Nevada Las Vegas' and 'Harvard University'. But when you talk to someone from the U.S., they talk about 'going to college'. It's even called 'College Football', but it's university football. :confused: (In Canada, colleges and universities are both post secondary institutions, but have different course offerings, program lengths, etc.)
i know rite gawrsh us americans sure is stupid yuk yuk yuk
 

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
in Canada, most universities (if not all) end their regular academic year in mid to late late April (it's all done by then, including exams), so we tend to have university study breaks in early to mid March as well.

Actually most post-secondary institutions (at least in Ontario) have their reading weeks during the second or third week of February. I think there was some discrepancy but since the introduction of Family Day during the third Monday of Feb they have shifted to the 3rd week so as to not have too many Monday's off. Definitely nice to have as it's still quite frigid and far cheaper to travel then.

The one exception is Medicine (maybe Dentistry?) whose programs always run until June and thus have the traditional public/high school march break. Not quite as nice because as we all know March break is expensive...


And yes we focus more on the distinction between college and university. I think the our "Colleges" are more akin to Community College in the states. Whereas I think to qualify as a University you need to offer departmental PhD programs.

I've been in post secondary toooo long. ;)
 

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
Came to this thread to read discussion on the mine train, instead read 2 pages about school vacations. I'm more interested in hearing about the water that was posted about before the topic was changed...

Since the ability to private message was removed, it's been a lot harder for members to avoid getting off on tangents...
 

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Since the ability to private message was removed, it's been a lot harder for members to avoid getting off on tangents...

I don't seem to have a problem. Let me try sending you a message now. On the upper right hand portion of your display, do you see the word inbox? It can be small and unobtrusive, but still there. When I send you the message you should see a number appear right next to where you see the number for alerts.
 

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