{"id":16212,"date":"2026-03-03T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=16212"},"modified":"2026-03-02T23:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:20:56","slug":"mandated-march-spring-break-a-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2026\/03\/mandated-march-spring-break-a-possibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandated March spring break a possibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Substack “sports grab bag”<\/a> a month ago started with the re-emergence of the “Iowa High School Sports History” website and also mentioned a good bill in the Legislature (mandating acceptance of cash for event admissions) and a very bad bill in the Legislature (mandatory “dead weeks” between sports seasons).<\/p>\n

This Monday, that last one got worse.<\/p>\n

Rep. Skyler Wheeler of Hull took his “noncontact period” bill, which has been renumbered HF 2508<\/a>, and is throwing in two more calendar changes.<\/p>\n

First, the amendment mandates<\/em><\/a> that all school districts implement a spring break week after the state boys’ basketball tournament, i.e. the third week of March\/week following the second Friday of March. As I wrote in the Substack post, many schools don’t set a spring break like this, and right now, it’s their choice<\/em> to have a whole week off or Good Friday and the Monday after Easter instead (or even none at all, since they can also be makeups for snow days).<\/p>\n

It just so happens<\/em> that Western Christian of Hull, one of three(!) private schools in the town, has the full March spring break with Good Friday thrown in elsewhere, whereas Boyden-Hull does not, and instead has its spring break on the Thursday through Monday around Easter.<\/p>\n

Second, and this is relevant to my analysis of school bond issue votes in November<\/a>, Wheeler’s amendment mandates that the state volleyball tournament not start until the day after Election Day.<\/p>\n

Wheeler is, in effect, micromanaging not only the school academic calendar but the school activities calendar. Ironically, the amendment doesn’t touch the heretofore-only third rail of the calendar, the August start date. It still says August 23 and not, say, the Monday or Tuesday following the end of the Iowa State Fair.<\/p>\n

As of blog post time, the bill is one of two dozen eligible for debate in the House. It would have to go to the Senate if approved.<\/p>\n

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My Substack “sports grab bag” a month ago started with the re-emergence of the “Iowa High School Sports History” website and also mentioned a good bill in the Legislature (mandating acceptance of cash for event admissions) and a very bad … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16215,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212\/revisions\/16215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}