The Kannapolis City Board of Education approved its academic calendar for the 2015-16 school year and took a look ahead at the challenges the 2016-17 school year will present at its business meeting Monday.

Kim Harn-Soryz, director of human resources, said that while the 2015-16 calendar was fairly easy to put together, it looks like the 2016-17 calendar will be a different story.

“You’re limited to your start day. You’re limited to your end day. You have to have 215 days in the school year,” she said.

A total of 182 of those days must be instructional days.

“This is not an easy task,” Superintendent Dr. Pam Cain added.

For the 2015-16 school year, classes will start Aug. 25 and will run through June 9 for students. Thanksgiving break will be Nov. 25 through 27, and winter break will run Dec. 23 through Jan. 1. Spring break will be March 25 through April 1.

There are nine inclement weather make-up days worked into the school year.

Before the board approved the proposed schedule, they requested that the April 29 optional teacher work day be moved to May 3 to ease traffic at Kannapolis Middle at Jackson Park Elementary schools, both of which will be polling places for the primaries that day.

Harn-Soryz said that based on state laws regulating school calendars and the way dates fall throughout the 2016-17 school year, schools across the state will face difficulty creating effective schedules.

As of right now, they’ve only been able to identify 181 educational days and have had to put the majority of the teacher workdays at the beginning and end of the school year. All exams and end of course tests will fall after Christmas break, without ample time to review the material and most school districts will have to play at least two football games before school starts.

“We’re really hurting on snow days on this one,” Harn-Soryz said.

As a result, the board decided to approve a resolution from the North Carolina School Boards Association requesting local control over school calendars to be returned to local school boards.

Mandi Campbell, principal of Fred L. Wilson Elementary School, along with several teachers and counselors updated the board on the elementary schools’ new “Hispanic Moms’ Night Out” program.

“Parent involvement has been a real critical need in our district for as long as I can remember,” Assistant Superintendent Dr. Chip Buckwell said.

The goal of Hispanic Moms’ Night Out is to provide a safe environment for those mothers to ask questions and learn about the school system within their own community. The school system provides babysitting and snacks, as well as discussions on critical topics for student success such as nutrition, Lobby Guard, health, the parent survey and parent handbooks.