The Mid-Prairie School District is adjusting the school calendar to make up hours lost due to winter weather. Last week, the district sent out surveys to students, faculty, and parents to get a gauge on how they’d like the time to be made up. The survey included options like adding to the end of the school year, going to school on Saturdays, and having school during spring break. The three most popular options from all the participants in the survey was removing weekly early outs, lengthening the school day, and going to school on April 19th, which was a scheduled day off for students.

Administration drew up a proposal that suggested adding 24 minutes to the school day from February 25 through March 29th, which means starting school 12 minutes earlier and dismissing 12 minutes later. The proposal eliminates early dismissals and late starts for the remainder of the year, and adds February 15th, February 18th, April 19th, June 3rd, and June 4th as school days.

These changes were approved unanimously by the school board and will bring Mid-Prairie back to the 1,080 hours required by the State of Iowa. If any additional school is missed the board voted to extend the length of the school days through April, and after that days would be added to the end of the school year.