The Gasconade County R-2 Board of Education during a Feb. 17 meeting approved the district’s 2026-27 Academic Calendar.

Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy provided a teacher-approved copy of the academic calendar for the board.

“This is the copy that the teachers voted on, for your approval,” said Hardy.

She mentioned that there was something they did not put on the calendar because of potentially having later discussions at the budget meeting.

“I don’t have anything about forgiveness days on there (the calendar) because I really want to get down to what exactly that costs us to do all that,” said Hardy.

She said that weather days are built into the academic calendar, but staff workdays aren’t yet scheduled.

“We did not add anything about teacher days until we actually get the final numbers on that,” said Hardy.

He opened the discussion up to the board about questions or concerns to the proposed calendar.

Hardy said later that the decision-making process behind the approved calendar relies heavily on teachers and staff.

“Really there’s not been anything controversial with the calendar except for the legislature start date,” said Hardy. “We would have liked to start the school date earlier, but that was out of our hands.”

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) met on Feb. 10 and unanimously voted to deny all future and pending calendar waiver requests for the 2026-27 school year to start earlier. Districts are required to receive permission to start school more than two weeks before Labor Day. The department received more than 130 requests from Missouri school districts for an earlier start date.

The board approved for the calendar to have 169 student days and 181 staff days, required weather days built in.

“We have 169 student days built in, that way if we have snow days hopefully that doesn’t affect our calendar,” said Hardy.

When it came to making the decision to start earlier, the Missouri State Fair was referenced.

“With that starting (start date) two weeks prior to Labor Day, that’s before the State Fair, so this way that students are able to participate in the State Fair, “ said Hardy. “There are students in our district that show animals and livestock in the Missouri State Fair.”

Missouri State Fair starts on Aug. 13-23, and school will begin at Gasconade County R-2 on Aug. 24 for the upcoming 2026-27 school year.

A calendar committee made up of classified staff and faculty comes up with the proposed calendar to present to the board.

“We meet together (the committee) and come up with a calendar together and the faculty votes on that calendar,” said Hardy. “Then we send that to the board of education.”

Board President Glenn Ely requested a motion.

“The motion: recommend action board of education approve the proposed 2026-27 district, academic calendar as presented,” asked Ely.

Board Secretary Melissa Bauer asked for a roll call because Board Member Jean Baker was attending virtually.

The motion was passed with a 6-0 vote to approve the calendar.