Minimum Instructional Hours
ODE Graduation Requirements
When setting up your Master Schedule, it is important to make sure that students earning high school credit follow guidelines set forth by the Ohio Department of Education:
High School Credit or Unit
“One credit or unit” means a minimum of 120 hours of course instruction. The exception is a laboratory course, where “one credit or unit” means a minimum of 150 hours of course instruction.
“One-half credit or unit” means a minimum of 60 hours of course instruction. The exception is physical education courses, where “one-half credit or unit” means a minimum of 120 hours of course instruction.
When creating your master schedule, the length of your periods should be sufficient enough to meet these minimum requirements. The spreadsheet below calculates common period lengths (in minutes), and based on the number of days in the year or semester, shows how many hours of instruction are possible. Red cells indicate less than the minimum requirement.
You can down load the spreadsheet below with the formulas and conditional formatting used in the image above.
ODE Minimum School Year Hours
Per ODE, school districts are required to be open for instruction for a minimum of:
455 hours for students in half-day kindergarten;
910 hours for students in full-day kindergarten through Grade 6; and
1,001 hours for students in Grades 7-12.
When creating your master schedule, consider the length of your school day, the number of days per year, and the length of your lunch period. The spreadsheet below calculates common lunch period lengths (in minutes), and based on the number of days in the year, shows how many hours of instruction are possible. Red cells indicate less than the minimum requirement.
The spreadsheet is broken into three tabs:
Elementary Day - shows the elementary school day (9am-3:30pm) and is applicable to K-5 and K-6 schools, as well as K-6 students at K-8 buildings
7th & 8th Grades at K-8 schools - shows the elementary school day (9am-3:30pm) and requirements for 7th and 8th grade students
MS & HS Day - shows Middle and High school day (7:30am - 2:30pm) and is applicable for all traditional middle and high schools
Calculations in the spreadsheet INCLUDE the provision in ORC 3313.48 that allows for 4 instructional days to be used for parent/teacher conferences (2) and for Professional Development (2)
It is important to note that while a school might have enough hours for the year, this spreadsheet does not take into account any possible calamity days. For example, on the K-8 tab, assuming that there are 168 school days and a lunch time of 40 minutes, this means there are 1004 instructional hours in the year. Although this meets the minimum requirement, it only leaves about 8 hours of a 'buffer' for possible calamity days.
Another thing to consider is when schools have a weekly assembly or something similar. Typically, these hours do not count as instructional time, and must be deducted from the total hours in the year to get an accurate calculation. This is not taken into account in this spreadsheet, as it would vary by school.