After Hurricanes Helene and Milton battered the Tampa Bay area and forced schools to close, local districts are now devising plans to make up for lost classroom time.
Kindergarten through third grade students are required by the Florida Department of Education to be in school for 720 hours each year and fourth through high school students need 900 annual instructional hours.
With varying amounts of lost days across the west coast of Florida, each district will need to make adjustments to the calendars to ensure students are in class for that required time.
Those adjustments will allow most districts to preserve originally scheduled seasonal breaks.
Pinellas County
Pinellas students missed nearly 50 hours of school due to the storms.
The board approved a plan on Oct. 29 to waive first semester final exams and require students to attend classes on Jan. 6, 2025 and Feb. 17, 2025, which were originally non-student days.
The last day of school, May 29, 2025, will also be a full day instead of a half day.
Board chair Laura Hine said the new schedule makes up for the lost time, and waiving midterms for middle and high school students restores about four days of instruction.
"So we really are picking up those days of instruction even though it doesn't look like we're adding much," Hine said.
High school graduations will now be held at the end of May, rather than the middle of the month.
Hillsborough County
The school district had already canceled early release days for the first semester after Hurricane Helene, but after Milton, second-semester early release days were canceled as well.
Hillsborough County Public Schools’ first semester will now end Jan. 6, 2025 and all first semester exams will be waived for middle and high schoolers.
Students on the east side of the county will have to go to school on Feb. 14, 2025, which was a non-student day for the Florida State Fair in Tampa. West side schools will still have off.
However, west side schools will have class on March 3, 2025, originally a non-student day for the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, and east side school students will have the day off.
Two minutes will also be added to each class period in the second semester for middle and high schoolers, delaying start or end times for the school day. The new start or end time will be communicated in December.
Sarasota County
Sarasota County Schools’ first semester will conclude Jan. 16, 2025, almost a full month later than originally scheduled.
All instructional days will now be full days, including during exam weeks.
Instead of having a non-student day on Jan. 6, 2025 for staff planning, students will now have class that day and be off Jan. 17, 2025. Students will also have to go to school Mar. 14, 2025 and May 29, 2025, days they originally had off.
Manatee County
Manatee County Schools lost about eight instructional days due to the storms.
They'll be made up mostly by turning a number of early release days and professional learning days (off days for students) between November and March into full days, and vice versa. A number of high schools will increase class periods by 1-2 minutes as well.
At a meeting Oct. 29, Manatee Superintendent Jason Wysong said the district had to negotiate deals with a number of employee groups before they could announce the new schedule.
"These agreements preserve all of the longer break periods, so no impact to Thanksgiving week, no impact to the winter or semester break, and no impact to spring break," Wysong said.
One day that students will no longer have off is Veterans Day. Manatee officials say they will be providing additional lessons about veterans to teachers for that day, and students will be encouraged to wear red, white, and blue clothing.
Days that have been changed from early release or professional learning to full student attendance include Nov. 6, Dec. 18-20, Jan. 6, 2025, March 5, 2025, March 24, 2025.
Days that have been changed from full student attendance to early release days are March 7 and March 14.
Citrus County
Citrus County students will now have to go to school on Oct. 21, Nov. 11 and Dec. 20. While students will no longer have Veteran’s Day off, county officials said they deeply value their veterans.
“We plan to honor them in meaningful ways in our schools,” they said in a statement.
Hernando County
Hernando County Schools will make up time lost due to the hurricanes on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19, holding full school days rather than early release days.
Pasco County
The Pasco County School Board finalized its plan to make up days lost to the hurricanes on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
The storms forced the cancellation of seven days of school. The board voted 4-1 to turn all four of their early release days in the spring semester to full instructional days.
Those days include Jan. 29, Feb. 26, March 26, and April 30.
Pasco is the last district in the greater Tampa Bay region to make its plans official.
