The end of the school year is rapidly approaching, as is the need for Chilton County schools to have a revised calendar in place for the 2012-2013 year.

Superintendent Dave Hayden met with the calendar committee Tuesday afternoon to come up with a revised calendar to present at a Board of Education meeting on June 19.

The Alabama Legislature has mandated that all schools in the state start no earlier than Aug. 20, two weeks before Labor Day, and finish no later than May 24, 2013, the Friday before Memorial Day.

Schools must be in session 180 days with at least six hours of instruction per day.

Chilton County’s problem is that it must now fit all 180 days and instructional hours into a tighter timeframe.

Hayden said the state asked schools not to make any decisions until after watching a webinar from the state superintendent.

“They didn’t say anything we didn’t already know,” Hayden said about the webinar, “But they made a strong recommendation that we continue going 180 days.”

The proposed calendar Hayden and the committee formed Tuesday would include regular instructional days for students on parent-teacher conference day in October, Presidents’ Day in February and two weather days in the spring.

The days listed above were not regular instructional days in the past.

In addition, second-term classes would begin Jan. 3.

“This is not going to be popular, but our hands are somewhat tied,” Hayden said. “We’re just so restricted.”

The alternative solution would be adding more minutes to each six-hour day, but problems could occur with hourly employees.

“You might be setting yourself up for labor problems messing with people’s hours,” Hayden said. “If you increase hourly workers’ time, you’re going to have to pay them overtime.”