On July 1, 2014 all Iowa school districts had the option to choose to go by hours rather than days. The rule before this change was that all school districts had to go to school for 180 days throughout the year. As of this past summer the districts had the option to switch from 180 days to 1,080 hours.

The Cedar Rapids Community School District made the decision to go by a hours based calendar so that the district schools can provide more flexibility, and more instructional time to make up for time lost by two-hour delays and cancellations.

“I think that it might not be that big of a change, but I don’t think the idea of making up two-hour delays will be in the students favor,” Alissa Waterhouse, jr., said.

Nearly 300 of Iowa’s 380 school districts made the decision to switch from the day’s based system to the hours based system for the 2014-2015 school year.

“With all of the two-hour delays that we have had and are going to have it is going to cause us to go to school in the summer longer than anybody wants to especially with the new hours system,” Garrett Kubovec, so., said.

The district calendar for the 2014-2015 school year looks no different then it did last year. If there is extra hours to make up there will be small increments of time added to school days or a full make up day will have to be made up in come cases.

Some students don’t notice the difference, but others are upset that the Cedar Rapids School District now has to make up two-hour delays.