First bell rings early at many area schools
State cleared way for districts to start classes sooner than in the past.
Summer break was shorter this year in the Lake Travis area, and don’t think for a minute that the kids don’t notice.
In the first week of August, Lake Travis High School students were already picking up class schedules
and paying for parking passes, with those in advanced courses lamenting that they had less time to finish summer assignments.
“No one is really happy about going back to school earlier,” said 16-year-old Coban Brooks, an incoming junior. “As far as summer assignments, like reading, it gives us less time for that, which is kind of stressful. But I’m happy to go back to school and see friends.”
They can thank the state of Texas, which paved the way for school districts to start classes earlier this year than allowed in the past. Back to school time used to occur in the same week across the state. Now it’s more like a season, with traditional Central Texas public school districts starting between Aug. 16 and Aug. 28.
A recent state law allowed for school districts to apply to become so-called Districts of Innovation, providing them the kind of autonomy charter schools have enjoyed for years.
It offers those with the designation the flexibility to decide when the school year starts, how teacher planning periods are used, whether teachers must be certified and class-size ratios. More than half of area districts received the designation.
The Lake Travis and Hutto
school districts are among the first to start, on Wednesday. Austin will start Monday.
Texas districts had been inching up their start dates since 1990, when the rule requiring that school start after Sept. 1 went away.
Even after the state clamped down on start dates, districts were granted waivers if they wanted an early start.
But pushback from the tourism industry and some parents led the Legislature to put an end to the option in 2007 and require districts to begin no earlier than the fourth week of August. Until now.
Local district leaders who will begin before the fourth week in August said the ability to structure the school year gives them more options, including scheduling professional development dates for teachers; allowing students to take their exams before winter break instead of in January, after two weeks away from school; and ending classes in May.
“The updated school calendar creates a better balance of instruction days in the fall and spring semesters, and allows us to end the school year in time for our students to take advantage of summer internships and other postsecondary opportunities,” said Edmund Oropez, the Austin district’s chief officer in charge of teaching and learning.
Austin parent Alison Norman said she doesn’t think the earlier start date makes sense for several reasons, including increased cooling costs during what is typically the hottest month of the year.
She said that the change “came out of the blue” and that her family already had plans to be on vacation during the first week of school.
“People tend to make plans many years in advance, and this change was made with only a few months of warning,” she said.
In Lake Travis, community members and parents told district officials they wanted more flexibility with the school year start and end dates, and the change allowed educators to more evenly distribute the days between the fall and spring semesters, said Mary Patin, the district’s deputy superintendent.
Lake Travis High senior Dakoda Ash, 17, spotted the upside of the new schedule: It will coincide with start and end dates in other parts of the country.
“I like it actually starting earlier,” she said. “I have a lot of friends who still live in Georgia, and they get out the same day I do.”
Her friends there who are done sooner typically must wait two weeks until she’s done with school before she’s able to visit, she said.