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DES MOINES, IOWA (AP) -- Sick and tired of calculating how many days of school you have left?

Instead of counting 180 days until school ends in Iowa, students may be counting the hours - only 1,170 to go.

According to The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, the Iowa Department of Education plans to propose a bill to change the way of calculating yearly classroom time. Currently, it's based on a minimum of 180 school days between July 1 and June 30. Under the change, it would be based on a minimum of 6.5 hours of daily instruction for 180 days, or 1,170 hours.

Carol Greta, the department's legal counsel, says the issue comes up every year of bad weather when schools dismiss early or delay school. She says under the new approach, it would stop the "crazy calculations" and students would have to make up all hours missed.

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