PEORIA – Shortened school days will continue in Peoria Public Schools next year, and the Peoria teachers' union is not happy about it. "The district is planning a shorter day next year, and the sole reason is because they cannot hire enough bus drivers,” said Jeff Adkins-Dutro, president of Peoria Federation of Teachers. “Our thinking is, you are doing all this talk about the balanced calendar, which essentially just spreads out the school days, when in the short term our kids can’t even get a full day of school because you can’t hire enough bus drivers.” Though the 2021-22 school day will be longer than it is right now, it will be shorter than it was before the pandemic. Currently students are in class for 5½ hours a day, and at the beginning of next year they will attend school for six hours each day. The pre-pandemic school day was seven hours long. The plan is to add another half hour to the school day at some point next year, but when that would happen, or under what circumstances, has yet to be determined.