The Warren County R-III School Board approved the district’s calendar for the 2017-18 school year during its monthly meeting Feb. 9.A few key changes were made. Perhaps most significant is the later start date to accommodate the construction taking place at several of the district buildings as part of the $10 million bond project. School is slated to start on Aug. 17, about a week later than usual.“We were trying to work with the contractors that are going to be building this summer and give them as much time as we could before the students come back to school,” said Assistant Superintendent Aaron Jones.The plan is for work to be completed by July 31 to allow time for maintenance to come in and set up new rooms and offices.Students will attend one less day than usual, going 173 next year instead of 174. Teachers will still operate on a 182-day contract.The 2017-18 school year is scheduled to end May 17.After evaluating preparation time in previous years, the district also decided to increase its instructional time for staff near the front half of the year.“We put a few more teacher professional development days at the beginning of the year,” said Jones. “There are so many trainings the buildings and teachers needed. We had continued to try getting all that in three days so we went to five to make it a little less pressure to get everything done in such a short amount of time.”With Easter falling earlier in the year, the district combined the holiday time off with spring break. Students will be off from March 26-30 for that occasion.The district will again dismiss early on the first and third Wednesdays of the month for professional development time. The exception will be during weeks when students are already off a full day. During those weeks they will attend a full Wednesday schedule.Snow days will be built in for use as necessary, and Jones says the district is thankful it has needed to use just one of those backup days for inclement weather this year.R-III School District