Spring Break 2019 Dates Breakdown

[CaptainHappenstance]

Backstory
My family (me, wife and 10 y/o son) are looking into a trip in mid-April 2019 during our son's Spring Break. I checked some crowd calendars and projections line up with common knowledge about the parks around Easter - about as crowded as it gets. I was a bit bummed because Spring Break is really the only time my family can go for an extended period of time due to other summer obligations, so I decided to do some research into common Spring Break dates to see if I could talk myself down from worries about super high crowds at WDW. Since I geeked out on data for an hour and already did the research, I figured I'd share in case anyone was curious or may find it helpful.

Approach
I found the Top 120 school districts by enrollment (for 2014) from the US Dept of Ed. For each district, I mapped it to the US Census Bureau's Region and Division (e.g. Florida is South Region - South Atlantic Division). I then looked up the Spring Break dates for each of the top 50 districts and identified which week of the year those K-12 schools had off. I stopped at 50 since the results seemed clear and the top 50 districts account for 6.3 million of kids out of the 8.8 million (71.37%) that attend school in the top 120 districts and about 12.4% of total US enrollment (~50 million as of 2015).

Observations
Observations about the Top 50 Districts

• Week 16 (April 14-20), the week before Easter, is most popular. 27.9% of children have Spring Break during this time. Next most common is Week 17 (April 21-27), the week after Easter, with 19.2% of children. Unsurprisingly, crowd calendars and Disney AP blackout dates nailed it. Bummer for me.
• 36 of the districts are in the South region, with 26 in the South Atlantic Division (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia). The South has very large school districts.
• The most common week for the South region is Week 16 (11 of 36 districts) followed by Week 11 (March 10-16) with 9 districts and Week 12 (March 17-23) with 7.
• All 11 districts in the South that have Week 16 are in the South Atlantic Division, which is the most likely to travel down to Disney, in my opinion, due to proximity.
• NYC has Week 17 (April 21-27) off. Philly's Spring Break is only the Thursday and Friday before Easter and the Monday after.

Personal Conclusion
Looks like we may pass on an April 2019 trip. We're in the Pacific NW and not sure we want to fly across the country to wait in lots of long lines.

2019 Spring Break Week By District Count (Top 50 School Districts)

2019 Spring Break Week By District Enrollment (Top 50 School Districts)

 

[FigmentSpark]

What is the likelihood of those groups having significant travel to WDW? For example, your week 16 is primarily the west region. Wouldn't far more people be going to DL than WDW that week? Any sense of how many of those school divisions are lower income and therefore less likely to be able to travel at spring break time? Not sure how that should be factored in, though, as I'm not a statistician.

Interesting data, though. Ours falls in week 11.

 

[tzolkin]

Well, this does make me feel a little better about our week 13 trip.

Our district has always coincided with Easter (neighboring county is the week before, ours is the week after). However, this year (2019) they decided to move it to late March (I'm assuming since Easter is so late.) So we decided to give Spring Break a try this time.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

So basically, week 15 is the winner for lowest projected school kid crowds...

 

[zebrastreyepz]

That looked like Greek to me. Our spring break is generally in March. We went in 2017 and it was fine.

 

[vinotinto]

Nice! This correlates perfectly with the Spring Break poll:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/spring-break-poll-for-2019.3680025/

The week of April 8th (week 15) is the best.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

Our school system, here in Virginia is breaking April 1 - 5. This is new this year. In the past, we have gone by Easter, but I understand from now on it will always be the first week in April.

ETA: It is the 4th largest county in Va.
Also just checked; it looks like almost all of central Virginia is off April 1 - 5.

 

[KittyKitty]

My family (me, wife and 10 y/o son) are looking into a trip in mid-April 2019 during our son's Spring Break.

You said midweek in April for your son's break, what are the dates? Where is week 15? I'm from Seattle, and am going the end of April.

Like your charts.

 

[CaptainHappenstance]

What is the likelihood of those groups having significant travel to WDW? For example, your week 16 is primarily the west region. Wouldn't far more people be going to DL than WDW that week? Any sense of how many of those school divisions are lower income and therefore less likely to be able to travel at spring break time? Not sure how that should be factored in, though, as I'm not a statistician.

Interesting data, though. Ours falls in week 11.

All good points. The three districts from the West region in Week 16 are LA, Clark County (NV) and Fresno (CA). The data set actually did have some income information. To your point, the poverty rates for those ages 5-17 years old in those three districts are 31%, 20.8% and 46%, respectively. That's...pretty depressing.

Also worth noting that I ignored the West region in my observations in the original post.

Nice! This correlates perfectly with the Spring Break poll:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/spring-break-poll-for-2019.3680025/

The week of April 8th (week 15) is the best.

Doh! Wish I would have seen this a few hours back. Thanks for sharing!

You said midweek in April for your son's break, what are the dates? Where is week 15? I'm from Seattle, and am going the end of April.

Like your charts.

Thanks! Here are the date ranges I used for the weeks:
Week: Dates
11: March 10 to March 16
12: March 17 to March 23
13: March 24 to March 30
14: March 31 to April 6
15: April 7 to April 13
16: April 14 to April 20
17: April 21 to April 27

 

[sscamarogirl2000]

I'm from augusta ga and we have spring break when the masters golf tournament is here. Everyone rents out their houses and leaves town. Many head to Disney. It's usually the 1st full week of April.

 

[GAMom2]

I was feeling pretty good about my daughter’s week 14 spring break and thought “maybe I can talk my husband into it!” ...and then I remembered we’ve booked a cruise already for that week.

 

[KittyKitty]

If Spring Break is the only time you can go, then this year will be the best, as many schools are changing their break dates as Easter is so late.
If you could go end of August, the crowds would be lower, but you would have to deal with the heat, and daily thunderstorms.
And tho this may not be an option, if your child is in elementary school, you could check with the teacher/school about going when school is in session. Older than that, then it would be harder to catch up on school work. IMO as a retired math teacher(why I like your chart!)

 

[4kids4karen]

My kids fall in Week 12. We are either going to Disney or on a cruise. My DD first said Disney, then a cruise. I booked a hotel at Disney but in case as it’s the less expensive option. LoL. It will be her 16th birthday so her bff will join us.

 

[Sora321]

Thanks for this! As a Canadian, the US spring break schedule never even crossed my mind. I was too preoccupied with scheduling around Easter. Thankfully, it looks like we'll be missing all the breaks as we arrive on the 28th of April.

 

[CaptainHappenstance]

If Spring Break is the only time you can go, then this year will be the best, as many schools are changing their break dates as Easter is so late.
If you could go end of August, the crowds would be lower, but you would have to deal with the heat, and daily thunderstorms.
And tho this may not be an option, if your child is in elementary school, you could check with the teacher/school about going when school is in session. Older than that, then it would be harder to catch up on school work. IMO as a retired math teacher(why I like your chart!)

This is actually a great perspective that I hadn't considered! Thanks!