A public hearing is coming up at the February Greene County School Board meeting about the proposed next school year calendar.

Superintendent Brett Abbotts says one noticeable change that maybe isn’t associated with the 2024-25 calendar necessarily is having the school district convert back to semesters from trimesters. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio it has been over a decade since the high school has been on semesters and he explains one major reason for the switch was continuity of classes for students.

“It allows students, if they’re going to take English classes, or math classes, science, or social studies that they can be in those core content classes all year long, without eliminating the opportunities for those kids to still take those CTE (Career and Technical Education) classes. The schedule will really align very well with the Career Academy and Iowa Central (Community College) being back on semesters.”

Abbotts notes by switching to semesters, the school day will end 20 minutes and seminar will be used once again at the high school. He points out seminar was one area that teachers and students wanted back to have extra time to get help if students need it for assignments and projects. 

Abbotts adds because of proposed legislation, the official school start date could be pushed up to August 21st instead of the current law of August 23rd being the earlier start date for schools. He will be asking the Greene County School Board to approve two different calendars, one with August 21st and the other with the 23rd as the first day of school. The public hearing is scheduled for 5:15pm on February 14th. Click the link below to access a draft of the proposed calendar.

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