Local tourism officials and school superintendents spoke about area schools starting back in early August and its impacts.

Vickie Carson, public information officer with Mammoth Cave National Park, said a combination of earlier school start dates and kid’s extracurricular activities during the summer have caused a slight but steady decline in park attendance over the past 10 years.

“I think it’s partly the school schedules, but also, kids are involved in lots of activities,” she said. “Families don’t have the same travel schedules as they used to.”

Twenty years ago, the park’s summer schedule ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but has slowly been pared back a week or so since schools began to start a few weeks before Labor Day, Carson said. She added that the park sees days of strong visitation during other school holidays like spring, fall and Christmas breaks.

“At times on certain days, we can be just as busy on a spring weekend as we are during the heat of the summer,” Carson said.

Jim Carroll, chief communications officer with the park, agreed with Carson. He said Mammoth Cave has experienced growth during the spring and fall seasons over the last several years as a result of the scheduled school breaks.

“When the students are out of school, that’s when moms and dads travel and we adjust accordingly,” he said.

Guntown Mountain owner Dan Broady, however, said that when schools start back the first or second week of August, his business takes a hit.

“We get cut off no later than the 10th of August,” he said. “When they start school, it’s over.”

Broady said that before schools started opening for classes in early August, the month was a profit period for Guntown Mountain after strong attendance during the rest of the summer.

Now, getting only a third of the business in August that he used to, Broady has had to find ways to cut corners. One way he accomplished this was not buying as much merchandise because the demand was not as high. Still, he said only so many corners could be cut.

“You can’t adjust enough to justify the loss in business,” Broady said.

A grassroots campaign entitled “Save Our Summers Kentucky” is an organization also concerned with the early school start dates. According to its Web site, the group’s mission statements are to educate Kentucky residents about the negative impact of early start dates and to get legislation passed in the General Assembly that mandates schools start no earlier than the week before Labor Day.

Superintendents with the local school systems talked about the reasons for beginning school in early August.

Dr. Jerry Ralston and Dr. Fred Carter, of Barren County and Glasgow school systems, respectively, both said they had been approached by parents in the past about moving the start date back. The parents believed that there was still plenty of summer left and opportunities for families to take vacations.