BURTON, Ohio — The Geauga County Fair keeps students like Ethan Koch and Lucas Koch busy during fair week. It used to be much busier for these Cardinal Local School District students when it overlapped with the start of school.
"It's very stressful trying to work with your animal while doing school work at the same time," Ethan Koch said. "When our school pushed it back — all that stress just blows away."
Over the past couple of years, both the Cardinal Local School District and Berkshire Local School District shifted their academic calendars so the school year starts after the Geauga County Fair.
"We get to focus on our animals more," Lucas Koch added.
But other districts' efforts have not been successful. Parents at Chardon Local School District petitioned for a similar shift earlier this year; however, educators ultimately decided to keep the earlier school start date.
Michael Hanlon, the Chardon superintendent, acknowledged in a statement and phone conversation with News 5 earlier this year that there are "a number of sometimes competing factors" when preparing an academic calendar, including learning loss, state testing, sports, extracurricular activities and coordination with nearby non-public schools where they provide transportation.
"School districts work to thread the needle when considering these factors to develop an academic calendar that satisfies as many of these concerns as possible," he said in a statement. "The Chardon Board of Education values community feedback and will consider comment on the calendar proposal."
RELATED: When should the school year start? In Geauga County, there's a push for after Labor Day
Watch that push by parents back in February here:
Rising second grader Kylie Luoma, who attends school in the Berkshire Local School District, participates in the fair with a lamb and a turkey.
"We work hard at school and I think we should get a little more time," Kylie Luoma said when asked to reminisce about what it was like when school and the fair used to overlap.
Her mother, Lauren Luoma, vividly remembers that time.
"They had to miss — those truancy letters happened," Lauren Luoma said.
Fair organizers say about 700 kids participate in youth events such as sewing, robotics and animals at the Geauga County Fair, which brings in about 250,000 people throughout Labor Day weekend.
"They're the next generation that's going to be raising animals," Meg Noah, Geauga County Fair secretary, said. "It's a 24/7 job right now; they're doing it for five days. They're raising their animals, bringing them here, getting them show-ready, they're participating in show, and for them to be distracted for, oh, 'I'm studying for a test the next day,' that's so tough."
Chris Newell chose to homeschool his children after his family found themselves repeatedly forced to choose between the fair and school when the two overlapped.
"We had to pull our kids from school — we don't want truancy but we made a commitment and as parents, we want to encourage our kids to live up to our commitments," Newell said.
The conversation is not limited to Geauga County.
At last week's Portage County Fair, the issue came up as well.
In fact, Field Local Schools realized they were starting the school year before the fair and quickly worked to shift their schedule to accommodate it, where many students participate or work.
But most school districts do not start after the fair — and fair organizers say the drop in student attendance is noticeable.
"It's always been a challenge," said Dave Kuntzman, president of the Portage County Randolph Fair. "We had a lot here yesterday [for Kids' Day] but a dozen years ago, we were overwhelmed, tripping over and could hardly move around with kids running around," Kuntzman said.
The Geauga County Fair runs through Labor Day.
Clay LePard is the Ashtabula, Geauga and Portage counties reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on X @ClayLePard, on Facebook ClayLePardTV or email him at Clay.LePard@wews.com.
