The Greene County School Board made some changes to the upcoming school year calendar for the high school.

At their regular meeting in June, the Board approved taking away two Monday Professional Development Days in the first trimester, as well as eliminating seminars in the high school daily schedule. Superintendent Brett Abbotts says the main reason for these changes was due to a shortage of hours of classroom time that students are required to have to receive full credit for a class. 

“So in the Iowa Code with us being on trimesters our students either 3,600 minutes or 60 hours of seat time or instructional time to be eligible for one unit. And we were just a little bit short in each of our three trimesters, more short in the first trimester just because of some holidays and how the calendar fell.”   

Abbotts talks about how seminar used to be a way for teachers to have intervention time with students to help them receive additional support if they were struggling with any classes.

“It had kind of morphed away from that and became more of almost a social hour or a free period (where) clubs would meet, things like that. I think while well intentioned by all, I think it transitioned away from what it’s supposed to be.”  

Abbotts adds the changes to the calendar allowed them to go above the required minimum that the state requires for classroom unit of credit.