The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2016 that requires school districts to provide at least 75,600 minutes of instruction instead of 180 days. With this new law, school districts are required to add minutes to make up for the time lost concerning bad weather days. The extended school day only applies to all prekindergarten, elementary and junior high students starting the second semester. Nine minutes are added to each school day so instead of elementary students that used to get out at 3:20 p.m., now leave at 3:29 p.m., junior high students leave at 4:04 p.m. now and morning prekindergarten at 11:10 a.m. and afternoon prekindergarten kids will let out at 3:30 p.m.

The ‘Extended School’ day rule confused some high school students thinking about how this might affect the high school bell schedule.

“When I heard about the extended school day, I pretty much panicked because an extra 9 minutes is a lot, school is already long enough as it is, why would I want an extra 9 minutes,” senior Isahia Lindsay said.

After high school students found out the extended school day does not apply to them they were relieved. High school students do not have extended school day because the amount of time we go to school every day is more than the amount of time younger students attend school.

“We better not have an extended school day, that’s just punishment”, senior Kevin Musasia, said.