HISD delays vote on calendar

Conflicts over Jewish holiday, testing in next school year cited

Houston ISD board members agreed Thursday night to postpone a vote on the 2017-2018 school-year calendar after concerns were raised about conflicts with STAAR testing and the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

The 8-0 vote came after HISD allowed parents and the public to voice their opinions on draft calendars. Of 75,000 votes received by the district online, nearly 90 percent favored an option that would give students — but not staff — the entire week of Thanksgiving off. Schools would have started Aug. 28, 2017, and ended June 1, 2018, under the more popular calendar.

Some parents who spoke at Thursday’s meeting were upset that the district had scheduled the end of the school year before it receives STAAR scores from the state.

HISD is the only district in the state to use STAAR results in deciding whether to promote or hold back students in third, fourth, sixth and seventh grades.

Sarah Becker, a parent of two HISD students, said that principals last year incorrectly told some parents their students would have to attend summer school until the district had received STAAR results.

“This year, STAAR’s scores are due back to the district four days after the end of school,” Becker said. “This is not a state problem — the state testing calendar is known well in advance. It’s up to the district that meets all legal requirements.”

At least five other school districts will approve their 2017-2018 calendars in the

coming weeks. Clear Creek and Deer Park’s boards will vote on calendars Monday. Cypress-Fairbanks, Alief and Fort Bend’s will vote in January, with the rest set to approve calendars in February or March.

But many districts will be unable to make a long-awaited change — moving their start dates up from the fourth week of August to earlier in the month. State laws mandate that schools start no earlier than the fourth week in August, a requirement done at the behest of the tourism industry.

That makes it difficult for districts to end the first semester before winter break without shortening other holidays, like Thanksgiving.

Unless the Legislature changes the law, districts that want to begin school earlier must receive a new state designation to do so.

Districts of Innovation have more flexibility in setting their calendars, hiring and other operational aspects than most traditional public districts. To get the title, districts must meet certain state standards on tests and other measures and create an innovation plan that spells out how they plan to use their additional flexibility.

‘Additional stress’

The Humble, Spring Branch and Huffman districts are among 35 Texas public-school districts that now claim the status, but more are pursuing it. They include the Alief, Stafford, Clear Creek, Conroe, Fort Bend, Katy, Tomball, Pearland and Friendswood districts.

Spring Branch’s board will decide Monday if it will exempt the district from the state’s start date so it can start earlier. Three of its six calendar options would have school start earlier than Aug. 28, including proposals to start school on Aug. 16 or Aug. 21. The other three options would have schools start on Aug. 28.

The Stafford, Friendswood and Katy districts hope to get their District of Innovation status approved in time to possibly move their 2017-2018 start dates up.

Fort Bend ISD is also applying for District of Innovation status, but won’t have it approved in time for its 2017-2018 calendar. That has left district officials to wrestle with a tough question: How can it end the first semester before winter break without disrupting holidays?

The district could either lengthen the school day by several minutes to finish the first semester before winter break or shorten Thanksgiving break from one week to three days.

“Fort Bend ISD has had final exams after winter break in years past, and this was not wellreceived by parents, students or teachers,” said Amanda Bubella, a Fort Bend ISD spokeswoman. “Many felt it added additional stress as students worried about exams over break.”

Some parents, like Windy Halvert from Pecan Grove, are fuming over a potentially shortened Thanksgiving break.

“I’m beyond livid,” the mother said. “It’s overkill. It goes against their core founding principles.”

She said her sixth grade son’s homework and school commitments are already too much, and that shortening the break takes away from time to unwind and bond with family.

“This is not going to work for me,” Halvert said. “This is unacceptable.”

‘Should be religion-neutral’

In HISD, the proposed calendar will go back to the district staff so they can make changes to accommodate the STAAR test results and to ensure staff can have a day off for Rosh Hashanah, which will fall on Sept. 20 through Sept. 22 in 2017.

Trustee Jolanda Jones hesitated to pass the 2017-2018 calendar Thursday.

“Whatever we do with the calendar, we shouldn’t put people of a certain religion ahead of others. It should be religion-neutral,” Jones said. “I would vote against it for those reasons.”

Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones left the meeting before the vote.

Trustee Wanda Adams made the motion to table the vote. She said that if the board had adopted the proposed calendar Thursday, it would have had to make amendments either to the calendar or to board policy in January.

The board plans to vote on the 2017-2018 calendar at their Jan. 12 meeting.