school vacation dates
 

School Vacation dates please for Florida and California for 2009.

Are you asking when attractions will be crowded? If so, I'm not sure about CA, but crowds in Florida are dictated by school vacation dates across the entire Eastern US. FL school vacation dates are really irrelevant.

Many schools have off the week of Feb 16-20, and/or the week of April 13-17 so those weeks will definitely be peak crowds.

There are schools out somewhere during the entire period from mid March through Easter week, so expect that whole time to be busy.

The week around Memorial Day (May 25) is also busy. Around mid June
(2nd - 3rd week), when all eastern US schools are out is when things get really busy again.

If you're asking a different question, then my apologies for guessing wrong.

My niece in Palm Beach County, FL, has a week of Spring Break vacation starting on Monday March 30, 2009 and classes will end on June 5 if they don't have to make up too many days (due to weather etc.).

In Florida school vacation dates vary slightly per county. You can look up those dates on the particular county school websites.

For example Miami-Dade county:

http://www.dadeschools.net/calendars/

School vacation dates vary by state and often by school district. The above poster is correct - for Orlando you need to consider dates in the entire eastern US. Really what's safe is Jan or early Feb - after that most weeks will have some school off - although naturally those adjacent to easter will be the worst.

Can't comment on Cal - except that a higher percentage of visitor will be relatively local.

In California, our spring break is variable as well. More schools are out the week before and after easter than other weeks, but colleges and universities can have spring break any time from late Feb to mid April.

there are no set school holidays even w/i one city let alone w/i entire states.

In my CA town there are many different school districts and there is very little coordination of school breaks. And then you throw in the year-rounders and it is even more complicated,

so - Perhaps if you tell us what times of year you want to visit, and which parts of CA/FL - we can give a bit more guidance

Thanks for your help. Planning a family vacation, 3 generations. We can come to Florida around Easter up till 24th April or CA maybe from 11th August.

We will be visitng theme parks but we have all been to FL many times so probably CA is better.

In California, our schools start back up in August or September. Most colleges and universities on semester systems start the 3rd or 4th week in August. Most on quarter system start sometime in September. Most of the elementary, middle,and high schools around here (San Jose, Santa Cruz, etc.) seem to go back 3rd week in August if they are on a traditional system.

our schools are not like in the UK that mostly follow the same holiday calendar.

For instance spring break. Some districts take the week before Easter, some the week after and some sort of split it.

Summer break can start anywhere from the 3rd week in May to the 3rd week in June. Same w/ start date after the summer break. w/i 50 miles of my house - there are districts that return the 2nd week of August, some that return the 1st or 2nd week of Sept, and some in between.

Colleges/universities tend to let out a bit earlier in the summer and return a bit later in Sept - but that also varies.

The only holidays that are fairly constant are Thanksgiving in Nov., and the winter break around Christmas/New Year - which is normally 2 weeks.

What these differences mean is the holiday crowds cover a wide time span. Any time around Easter will be crowded in the FL or CA theme parks. By late August, w/ many schools back in session - the SoCal Theme parks are just a teensy bit less crowded. But then up pops Labor Day weekend when everything is slammed. Labor Day is like your August Bank Holiday - it is a huge 3 day weekend that fall on the 1st Monday in Sept.

Thank you all for your help.

Although there is no easy answer I do now have the facts to work round.

Will now try and plan the vacation.