Area school districts have either begun or are wrapping up the process of formulating their calendars for the next school year, and for Perry and Adel-DeSoto-Minburn the proposed schedules look very similar.

For both districts, the first day of school for the 2020-21 year will be Monday, August 24th. Both will take winter break from December 23, 2020 through January 3, 2021, as well as spring break from March 13-21, 2021. The tentative last day of school will be Thursday, May 27th. Perry Superintendent Clark Wicks points out, schools operate under the same time requirements, which is why calendars often times look the same. “The conversation with the school calendar is the number of hours that are required for student contact time, as well as then the number of days that we contract with teachers. So we’re trying to balance those things out and hopefully have another great year at Perry Community Schools!”

The main difference between the Perry and ADM calendars will once again be early dismissal days. In Perry, students are released 90 minutes early each Wednesday. ADM Superintendent Greg Dufoe outlines their early out schedule. “We did some major changes to our calendar last year when we moved away from a twice monthly two-hour early release to an every Friday 2 p.m. release. And again, that is directly related to our collaborative team time. So we made that change for this calendar year, and so our draft calendar for next year looks a lot like this year.”

The Perry School Board has approved their 2020-21 calendar already, and the ADM Board will have a public hearing during their February meeting before approving theirs.