The Green Forest Board of Education voted to accept a 26/27 school year calendar during their February meeting. There are many factors that go into creating a calendar each school year. The first allowable start date is dictated by state statute. School cannot start more than 14 days prior to Labor Day. This means that the first allowable day for the 26/27 school year is August 24th. Green Forest historically begins on the first Wednesday of that week and therefore our first day next year is on August 26th. The various breaks and days off throughout the year are coordinated with the other Dent County schools. We provide transportation to our high school students attending Salem R-80 and therefore we try to match most of their breaks in order to avoid confusion both within the families we serve and our transportation staff. The State of Missouri requires a minimum calendar of 1,044 hours. The state also requires that we build in a minimum of 36 inclement weather hours into the calendar that we submit. This means that our calendar must have a total of 1,080 hours. If we miss greater than the 36 hours we build in, districts are responsible for making up an additional 24 hours of school missed for inclement weather. This means that a calendar that shows at least 1,104 hours has the maximum number of built in snow days and locks all breaks and the last day of school into place regardless of the number of days we miss for snow. Last year, we missed 17 days of school due to inclement weather and because we had a calendar showing greater than 1,104 hours, we did not have to push back the last day of school. We feel like this is important for both the curriculum demands that we are charged with and also for families who may be looking ahead and planning for appointments or trips. You can see that this calendar has 1,141 hours built into it. This means that the breaks you see on the calendar and the last day of school will remain untouched regardless of days we may miss due to inclement weather.
You may be asking, "Why do we go 37 hours beyond what the state requires?" There are several reasons why we go slightly beyond the 1,104 required by the state. The number one reason is curriculum. Our pacing guides and academic standards are based more on days than individual hours. Our calendar has a total of 160 days of school. That is our target each year when constructing the calendar in order to ensure that we are providing our teachers and students with adequate time on task to master the standards expected of them.
To view the 2026/2027 School Calendar click here.