Columbia Public Schools will attend classes after Memorial Day. That’s after the CPS Board approved changing the last day of school to May 27 at its meeting Monday night.
The decision comes as a result of the district using all of its allocated snow days. And a new state law requires 169 instructional days each school if the district wants to receive additional state funding.
Michelle Holz, CPS’s chief human resources officer, said because the state law was enacted in August, it was difficult for the board to make changes.
“It’s really hard sometimes to anticipate changes to the state and the state legislature and the regulations," Holz said. "So we do our best with the information that we have.”
The board has already amended the calendar for next year to accommodate possible snow days, totaling 171 days of school.
Holz says students that have school trips that bleed into the amended calendar, such as the yearly science trip to the Grand Teton mountains, will not be counted absent.
