The school day just got longer for Kannapolis students, thanks to recent cancelations and delays caused by winter weather.

Rather than scheduling makeup days on Saturdays and over spring break, each school day will be extended by 12 minutes for the rest of the year to make up for the time lost, in addition to utilizing March 27 and May 25 as snow days.

“It just causes lots of problems when you do either Saturday school or spring break,” said Ellen Boyd, director of community relations.

“Attendance is often terrible,” she said, adding that families often make plans for spring break, and many students and staff work on Saturdays.

“The 12 minutes worked out great,” she said. “The math worked out great.”

A.L. Brown High School has four blocks on instructional time each day, and three minutes will be added to each block.

With the 12-minute addition to each day, the district will have enough hours to cover one more two-hour delay this year.

Kannapolis schools have missed seven school days during the past two weeks due to inclement weather. Another day was already designated as a holiday, and one more day had a two-hour delay.

North Carolina law dictates that public school systems provide at least 185 days or 1,025 hours of academic instruction to students each year. It also states that schools must begin no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and end no later than the Friday closest to June 11.

Kannapolis City Schools bases their academic time on hours of instructional time rather than days, so the additional 12 minutes each day will add together to make up for the time missed.

Kannapolis Intermediate School and Kannapolis Middle School will be in class from 7:15 a.m. until 2:12 p.m., the district’s elementary schools will have classes from 8:10 a.m. until 2:52 p.m. and A.L. Brown High School’s hours will be from 8:40 a.m. until 3:37 p.m.

McKnight Head Start’s hours will not change.

The Rowan-Salisbury School System has not yet decided how it will make up the time missed over the past few weeks. Superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody said she expects to make a decision sometime next week.