By AMY JONES / Associate Editor

HOOVER — Hoover City Schools will start school 10 days later than the system did last fall due to a new state law.

For the 2012-2013 school year, Hoover schools will begin classes on Aug. 20, 2012 and end classes May 23, 2013.

The 2011-2012 school year began on Aug. 10.

The changes were prompted by a new state law, which requires schools start no earlier than two weeks before Labor Day and end before Memorial Day in an effort to extend the summer tourism season.

Hoover City Schools spokesperson Jason Gaston said the state requires 1,080 instructional hours per school year. In order to meet that requirement with fewer days available during the school year, some schools will add minutes to the beginning or end of school days.

Greystone Elementary School and Berry Middle School will see no change in their daily schedules, Gaston said.

However, Spain Park High School will add 20 minutes to the beginning of every Wednesday morning.

Spain Park already had a schedule that allowed students to come in at 9:25 a.m. on Wednesdays to allow for faculty meetings and student-teacher conferences, so classes that day will now start at 9:05 a.m.

Gaston also said Hoover schools will not have a President’s Day holiday in February and will not have an October professional development day for teachers. Also, there are no scheduled inclement weather make-up days.

However, the school system does have an e-learning day set for Saturday, Nov. 3, which would give students the chance to make up a day missed for reasons such as inclement weather online.

Gaston said if Hoover schools must be out for more than one unplanned day, other days will be planned as e-learning days.

Gaston said parents and community members have had “mixed reactions” to the new calendar.

“At the end of the day, I think most people realize this was a state-related mandate, and at the end of the day there’s only so much we could do when we were mandated to (start no earlier than two weeks before Labor Day) and have a finish date before Memorial Day,” Gaston said.