The Mehlville School District is in session for ten out of twelve months of the year. In second semester, a calendar is released to prepare the students, staff, and community for the coming year. The 2016-2017 calendar was just released on Jan. 13 and is noticeably different from that of 2015-2016.

For starters, the first day of school next year is not until Aug. 17, as opposed to this year’s date of Aug. 13. Because of this, almost all the dates of holiday breaks and conference days are pushed back in the first semester. In 2015, the semester was 95 days long. In 2016, the first semester will only be 82 days. Luckily, major breaks like Thanksgiving will remain the same amount of days.

In addition, the first semester of next year will include a fall break or a four day weekend that will be introduced in October. Also changing is all two hour early release days. These have been changed into half days, a change that has students excited.

“Half days are shorter than early releases,” Emily Kearns (11) said. “It will be nice to have that little bit of extra time off.”

The half days will now be on Wednesdays and Thursdays instead of Fridays. Student days off will also move to Fridays instead of this year’s Tuesdays.

The most significant change in the schedules is over winter break. This year, break began on Dec. 19 and lasted until Jan. 3. Next year, students will have Dec. 23 off and then eight days off. Teachers will have a workday on Thursday, Jan. 4 to prepare for students’ arrival the next day. This means that one day has been cut off the winter break.

Students seem slightly upset by the loss of the day, but some teachers, like Ms. Denise Willie, math teacher, are happy to have a day to recollect their classrooms before the start of second semester.

“It is nice for us to have time to prepare our classes,” Willie said. “We get into the flow of break just as much as students and need time to remember what we were working on as well.”

For the most part, the changes to the school calendar are minor and will not affect most student’s and staff’s everyday routines.