Students throughout Michigan will be spending more time in school due to a new requirement set by the state.

Each state has different rules for how long students need to be in school for. Some states require students to be in school for 175 days, whereas others require 180 days. Michigan recently passed a law in which public schools are required to have 180 days of pupil instruction.

In order to compensate with the new law, two full days were added to the 2017-18 calendar. Students’s winter vacation will end on Jan. 2 and return to school on Jan. 3, 2018.

Memorial Day weekend has previously been four days long, lasting Friday-Monday. This upcoming Memorial Day will only be three days. Students will be in school May 25, 2018, the Friday before Memorial Day.

“As an educator,” biology teacher Robert Morin said, “I can get the curriculum across with the [extra] days given.”

Morin will now have more time to teach the curriculum with the more time he now has.

Three minutes have also been added to the end of the high school day. Instead of a dismissal time of 2:11, students will now be released from school at 2:14.

Having a few more minutes added doesn’t seem like it would make a big difference, and having added days seems small compared with all the other days students are in school.

Some students seem indifferent to the new dismissal time.

“It doesn’t seem like a big difference though,” said junior Breanna Carlo. She agrees that three minutes are better than an additional day at the end of the year.