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School Year Starts Early For Some, Cutting Into Labor Day Plans

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Students in several area school districts will head back to school next week, the week before Labor Day.  And that's having an impact on the Labor Day weekend plans of these students and their families.

Some schools in Montgomery and Chester counties are among the many across the mid-Atlantic region that will send kids back to school at the end of August.

"It almost isn't fair to go back before Labor Day," says Susan Jones of the Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Association in Ocean City, Md.

Jones says the early school start date is impacting the bottom line of her organization's members.

"It definitely impacts tourism during the last two weeks of August," she tells KYW Newsradio, "so we've had to be really creative and develop a new promotion with really deep discounting."

But Jones says they promote more in New Jersey and in New York, where schools start after Labor Day.

Diane Wieland, of the Cape May County Department of Tourism, says the Jersey shore tourism industry -- which employs school-age kids in jobs such as lifeguards, restaurant servers, and seasonal retailing -- is part of the reason that schools in New Jersey open later.

"There is a lot of pressure on the schools because so many of the schools and the students are a part of our workforce, to keep them in their jobs and keep the summer going all the way through Labor Day," Wieland says.

Both Wieland and Jones agree that Labor Day weekend is one of the best times to get a deal on a last-minute vacation to a beach resort.

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