Postpone your summer plans, because the state is requiring all school districts to add five more days to our 2016-2017 next school year.

While some schools have been forced to make up the these days by subtracting them from their winter break, our school district is adding on days to the end of the school year. This addition will push the district’s last day of school to Friday, June 16 in 2017, a week later than summer vacation typically begins.

“The Kent Intermediate School District has what’s called a common calendar. They dictate when the holiday break is. Recently though, after we created this contract, they changed the common calendar. So, a lot of schools in Kent County are only going

to have a five day break and not 10 days off. But because we have a contract in place, we don’t have to follow that. Had we had not had a contract in place, we would have had to follow that,” Principal Jenny Fee said.

Over the years, the number of days mandated by the state of Michigan has been consistently increased. This time has usually been compensated for in our Feb. Winter Break. Where at one time we had a week, in 2016-17 school year, this break will be limited to one day.

This addition of days will be accompanied by a subtraction of six minutes from the school day. While we usually get out at 3:05 p.m., this release time will be adjusted to 2:59 p.m.

The addition of time isn’t the only change that will hit the high school next year. The routine morning announcements will be- come the mid-afternoon announcements as they will be shifted from 1st to 7th hour due to a change in the schedule to accommodate for IB classes.

The state legislature is motivated to make these time changes by a competition among countries, states, and districts over educational instructional time.

“There are always comparisons about how much time do our kids spend in the classroom versus another country’s kids and [states] debating whether other states are ‘ahead of us,’” Fee said.