New ROCORI Calendar Gives Students An Earlier Start

COLD SPRING (WJON News) -- One area school has decided to get a jump on the school calendar over the next two years. The ROCORI school board approved its calendar for the next two years and plans to start classes on September 1st.

Why can they start earlier, and what are the advantages?

With Labor Day occurring later in September in 2026 and 2027, the state legislature approved schools starting classes before Labor Day.

Superintendent Kevin Enerson says the early start will help them with scheduling breaks and handling winter weather:

"If you have a late start, you end up having shorter, you might take, you might lose a day or two at Christmas break, and then you can take other days off during the Spring, and so it just condenses your calendar. It doesn't give you a lot for like snow make-up days and those types of things, so this gives you a few extra days so you can kind of build a couple other days in during the year."

He says starting earlier gives the district a lot of additional flexibility as well:

"We have 182 teacher days, so you have to gotta get those in, and then there is a 172 student days, so you're just trying to count out where they all fit and make sure that you get those requirements in."

Enerson says the 2027 - 2028 calendar is still tentative, so they could make changes yet, but the plan is for the district to be done before June in each of the next two school years.

READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT