Spring break
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For an article concerning the Easter break, see Spring Holiday.
Spring break, also known as March break in some parts of Canada, is a week long recess from studying in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, and other countries.
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[edit] Time of the year
In the United States, spring break may range from the end of February to later days in April, but many schools are out for at least one of the weeks in March. Some schools call this "March break" when it is a middle week in March. Other schools call it "spring recess." Many K–12 institutions in the United States coincide their spring break with Easter and Passover. In New York, most students have spring break in April.
In Canada, the March Break for students in elementary school and secondary schools is usually the first week of March, so there is no school that special week. However, both Nova Scotia and British Columbia have their March Break the second or third week of March, while the break in Alberta usually comes in the last week of March.
In Canadian universities, it is known as reading week, or, "Slack week" and is in late February or early March.
In Japan, the spring break starts with the end of the academic year in March and ends on April 1 with the beginning of a new academic year.
[edit] History
From the end of World War II until the 1980s, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a notorious spring break destination in the United States. On March 19, 2006, the New York Times reported that Fort Lauderdale's reputation as a spring break destination for college students started when the Colgate University men's swimming team went to practice there over break in 1935.[1] Fort Lauderdale became even more popular due to the 1960 film Where the Boys Are, in which college girls met boys while on spring break there.
[edit] Common practices
Spring break's notorieties include increased drinking and sexuality. Residents of the Fort Lauderdale area became so upset at the damage done by vacationers, that the local government passed laws restricting parties in 1985. At the same time, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was enacted in Florida (and most of the rest of the United States), raising the minimum drinking age to 21 and causing many underage college vacationers to travel outside the United States for spring break. By 1989, the number of college vacationers fell to 20,000, a far cry from the 350,000 who went to Fort Lauderdale four years prior.[2]
Spring break party goers responded by moving to the more permissive community of Daytona Beach area (over 200,000 students traveled there each spring at its peak), but after Daytona's local government undertook similar measures, the crowds of the mid-1990s and early 2000s had fallen to a point where "a few students still come, but officials don't even estimate their numbers." Panama City Beach, Florida remains a popular spring break destination due to its relatively close proximity to many Southern colleges and driving distances. The locals in Panama City Beach welcome Spring Breakers every year, and is a major factor in the city's economy. South Padre Island, Texas is also another popular Spring Break destination among students from colleges in the south-central and midwestern parts of the country.
Popular destinations outside the United States include Cancún, Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. Tour agencies have not only cited the lower drinking ages in these places, but also the fact that the drinking ages are poorly enforced.
