This year, Maryland students in grades K-12 made their way back to school on Aug. 23 ­­— more than a week before Labor Day. Next year, however, they’ll have a few extra days of summer.

State public schools will start after Labor Day and end on June 15 for the 2017-18 school year, thanks to Gov. Larry Hogan’s Aug. 31 executive order. The decision to start school after Labor Day has “strong, bipartisan support among an overwhelming majority of Marylanders,” Hogan’s news release said. In fact, 72 percent of Maryland residents supported moving the official start date of state public schools until after Labor Day weekend, according to a 2015 Goucher poll.

College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn said he doesn’t see any “education-based” reason for the executive order, adding that when to start classes should be left to teachers and school employees.

“There’s a lot that our schools need to accomplish over the course of the school year,” Wojahn said. “And [educators] think that it’s important that students have the ability to get accustomed to the classroom … earlier on.”

A 2013 nonpartisan task force determined “there was no compelling evidence that showed there was any impact on education starting post-Labor Day,” according to the news release. A post-Labor Day start could generate $74.3 million in economic activity, according to the news release.

“A post-Labor Day school start is not a novel idea,” said Shareese Churchill, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office. “Maryland did it for years, and a number of states and major school districts across the country do the same.”

Worcester County, which started school on Sept. 6 this year, is the only county in the state that already begins school after Labor Day, according to The Washington Post.

The order requires that schools still have 180 days of classes. Local school systems must apply for a waiver each year along with “compelling justification” to be exempted from the executive order, according to the news release.

The tentative first day of school for the 2017–18 school year in Prince George’s County is currently Aug. 22. The school system will announce any changes to the 2017–18 calendar if necessary, April J. M. Lee, principal of Hollywood Elementary School in College Park, wrote in an email. The system could apply for a waiver, if it decided to.

Emmett Hendershot, the principal of Paint Branch Elementary School in College Park, declined a request for comment.

The University of Maryland is not affected by the executive order, Churchill said.