They have procrastinated all year. Nearly 60 year-round elementary schools in six Orange County school systems will begin classes in August. Not all of them offer bilingual education, however. School calendars are typically scheduled months in advance, and often begin with a teacher training day, followed later by the first day when students arrive for classes. This leaves open to interpretation what qualifies as the first day of school.
Many districts consider it the day when students fill their seats.
Anaheim and Santa Ana have ruled it as Friday, the day teachers return. The Orange County school districts are not seen as violating the law, because districts are given limited discretion in the matter, Gilman-Ponce and others said. Now part of the California education codes, Proposition 227 officially takes effect Sunday. Originally, officials feared that they had to fully comply with the regulations by that day. But, by marking the official first day of school as Friday, this batch of students is exempt from abiding by the new regulations.