Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — Jackson Public Schools students missed seven days of school in January after freezing temperatures caused more than 200 water main breaks throughout the city. The district must make up those missed days this spring, and on Tuesday, the JPS Board of Trustees approved a plan to extend school days, as well as use inclement weather days to make up for lost time.

Schools will be open on previously scheduled days off around Easter, March 30 and April 2, as well as parent-teacher conference day, scheduled for Feb. 19.

To make up the four other school days, the board voted to extend school days by an hour for the next two months, starting on Monday, Feb. 12. Students will not have to go to school on the weekend to make up any days. The new question does not affect spring break and graduation dates.

Interim Superintendent Freddrick Murray said the district's plan for make-up days took into account input from various stakeholders. The plan gives JPS a buffer, adding two additional learning days to the students' needed make-up time.

"We could recoup (all needed makeup days) by going through April 5, but we want to extend that because there may be additional inclement weather days," Murray told the board Tuesday. "If we don't need them, our students will still have recovered instructional time that won't go to waste."

The board unanimously approved the new schedule, which will begin on Monday.

The new JPS school schedules for February 12 through April 12 are as follows:

Elementary Schools

School day begins: 7 a.m.

Instruction begins: 7:45 a.m.

School day ends: 3:15 p.m.

Middle Schools

School day begins: 7:25 a.m.

Instruction begins: 8:05 a.m.

School day ends: 4:05 a.m.

High Schools

School Day begins: 7:30 a.m.

Instruction Begins: 8:25 a.m.

School day ends: 4:30 p.m.

Email reporter Arielle Dreher at [email protected].