The 2019-20 school year will spill over into June.

This after Superintendent Mr. Jay Curtis announced last week that the required makeup day to replace the Nov. 15 state football Friday will be May 29 for students and June 1 for teachers.

“The state requires that we have 175 student-contact days,” PHS Principal Mr. Tim Wormald said. “If something happens in the middle there, where we don’t have school on one of those days, it has to be made up somewhere down the road.”

The change will not have drastic effects on students, as Friday, May 29, will remain an early release day and allow students to meet the state-required class time for the current semester.

“This isn’t set in stone, but my initial thinking is that those last two days of school [May 28-29] will look very similar to the two days of school before Christmas break,” Mr. Wormald said.

Before setting the date, Mr. Curtis solicited information from administrators on what day would be best.

“I think one of the reasons that day at the end of the year was chosen was because it is the furthest one away,” Mr. Wormald said. “Even though there will still be some families that will have things planned at the end of May, it gives people an opportunity to adjust their schedules.”

This change will affect district employees who will now return on Monday, June 1. All professional development activities originally scheduled on Friday, May 29, will be moved to Monday in order to meet the mandatory 185 teacher-contact days.

“Every year that I’ve been here, the teachers have been here at least one day after the students in May or June,” Mr. Wormald said. “More often than not, it is not the following week.”

For some, the decision proved to be inconvenient.

“I would much rather have filled in on two Fridays, when we only had half days; then we wouldn’t have to come back on a Monday,” science teacher Mrs. Wendy Smith said. “I had already had plans to go to Italy with my son, so now we aren’t going.”

Others were indifferent about coming back after the weekend.

“There wasn’t really another day in the calendar that made sense,” math teacher Mr. Troy Hildebrand said. “We will just have to stay as long as we have to stay on Monday; it doesn’t make one bit of difference to me. As long as the students are done on Friday and they don’t have to come back on a Monday, it is no big deal.”