School hours & early dismissal
Set your arrival and dismissal times, including a weekly half day, so Elira can answer "what time does school let out?" — and understand why closures still need a calendar.
"What time is dismissal?" is one of the most common questions families ask. School Hours on School info is what lets Elira answer it.
Setting your hours
Under the school profile:
- Regular day starts / Dismissal — the times for a normal school day.
- Applies to — tap the day chips to match your week. Turn a day off if there's no school that day.
- + Add a different day — for any weekday that runs its own hours. Most schools use this for a Wednesday half day: pick the day, set its times, and label it ("Half day", "Early dismissal").
Under the card you'll see exactly what Elira will tell families — for example *Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 8:00 AM–3:00 PM; Wed 8:00 AM–12:30 PM (Half day)*. Save when it reads right.
Office Hours (when your front desk is staffed) is a separate field — Elira quotes that when telling a family when to call.
Which answer wins on a given day
When a family asks about a specific day, Elira uses the first of these that applies:
- A dated note on the AI Knowledge tab — "Parent Teacher Conference, 1PM dismissal"
- A dated event with a time
- Your regular school hours for that weekday
So a one-off early dismissal only needs a note; you never have to edit your weekly hours for it.
What school hours will *not* do
Your hours describe a normal week. On their own they can't know about a holiday, a PD day, or a snow day — so Elira will not use them by themselves to answer "is there school Friday?". Set up Is there school tomorrow? and she can answer that from your calendar; without it, the question goes to your office and a person replies.
This is deliberate. Telling a family school is open on a day it's closed is the one mistake worth being slow about.