Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 11, 2024

“You wouldn’t know it from the heat, but summer is over. School begins Monday in Dallas ISD, and this year school has a new twist (at least in some parts of our city).

As a mother of three young children, I find the start of school to be bittersweet. As my priest said at my wedding rehearsal dinner, it’s the death of something and the birth of something new.

Summer’s end is the death of weekday morning cartoons and cereal bowls, endless hours in the pool and popsicles on IV drip, nights spent up late with the couches put together for the primetime Olympics coverage, our family vacation to Montana (which I’m pleased to report rivaled my parents’ adventures when I was young).

A new school year is also the birth of a new schedule — one that sets household wakeup and bedtimes, and work, and pickups and activities. It’s the return of the kids’ everyday socialization with people aside from siblings and friends, and the welcomed return of learning. “