Officials shuffle school calendar for TEA
Eanes officials are trying to determine how to add and apply instructional minutes to the school calendar to meet new requirements of daily attendance set by the Texas Education Agency.
New mandates approved in the past legislative session give schools less credit for professional development and early release days, so the district is studying how to make up the difference. Changes take effect in the 2018-19 school year.
Deputy Superintendent Jeff Arnett and Associate Superintendent Todd Washburn have been collaborating with Heather Sheffield and Anjali Zutshi, parent representatives of the district leadership team, about how to create more teaching time. They presented options to the school board Oct. 17.
Previously, calendars were determined by the number of days; now calendars are determined by instructional minutes. If public schools don’t comply with a prescribed number of minutes, they lose funding.
Under the new rules, elementary school schedules could easily become noncompliant. There is a disparity in the number of instructional minutes between grades kindergarten thorough five and upper-class levels because of parent-teacher conferences scheduled over three half-days. With this in mind, district officials are trying to create more elementary teaching time and prepare for canceled or shortened days due to bad weather.
Arnett noted the three goals are to review the calendar with an eye toward lengthening the Thanksgiving holiday, consider transportation solutions and meet or exceed the state’s requirements for instructional time.
He acknowledged that “building the calendar is a community process. ... It’s not easy.” Any changes to the schedule will have to address new bus timetables, traffic, and the ability of parents to drop their children off at school and get to work on time.
Through the years, there have been previous discussions about scheduling a weeklong Thanksgiving vacation.
“It’s two-to-one that parents prefer to have Thanksgiving” week off, Shef- field said, but she noted there was less enthusiasm if it meant classes would start earlier in August.
“We need to make sure it’s clear that we can’t have a later start date, be off a week at Thanksgiving and be off by Memorial Day.” Having a weeklong break at Thanksgiving might also mean giving up the traditional Columbus Day holiday.
Other options include: starting the school year a couple days earlier, ending a couple days later, starting all elementary schools except Eanes up to 10 minutes earlier, possibly end Eanes five minutes later and put aside two inclement weather days just in case.
Trustees Julia Webber and Ellen Balthazar asked that the transportation department be consulted about the earlier start time, to determine when buses would pick up students to arrive at school by 7:30 a.m.
Parents, staff and perhaps high school students will be asked for their opinions in a survey to advise the committee. Officials intend on bringing a calendar back for approval by the end of November or December, Arnett said.