The Neelyville R-IV School Board will hold a special meeting at 7:30 tonight to vote on a calendar for the 2011-12 school year.
Superintendent Brad Hagood said he will propose adding an additional 25 minutes to the end of each school day, pushing back release time to 3:30 p.m., with a May 4 release date.
At last month's regular monthly meeting board members discussed approving a calendar by July 30, but Hagood later learned the district has until Aug. 15 to make a decision.
"We're just going to try this and see how this works for us this year," Hagood said. "This is kind of trial and error for us this year."
"One of the selling points for me in this is I think it's going to save us a little money," he added.
Hagood also believes the calendar will help families and staff plan around breaks.
"Any of our inclement weather days, we could add those on to the end instead of using those throughout the school year for our holidays and breaks that are already scheduled in the calendar," he said. "This will allow our faculty members, our kids and parents to schedule things throughout the year and not worry about us using those as makeup days."
More instruction time each day before MAP and EOC testing, and less of the school year after the exams, will also better utilize time, Hagood said.
Hagood will recommend adding the time to the end of the school day rather than the beginning because "kids already get on the bus fairly early in the morning."
"It might help working parents too, by keeping them a little longer in the day," he said.
The recommendation was "very well received" among teachers, Hagood said, and parent input at tonight's meeting is invited.