The Brownwood ISD Board of Trustees on Monday night unanimously approved a 180-day school calendar for the 2022-23 school year – eight more days than the current school year – as well as 30 optional days in the summer for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
The district’s Site-Based Decision Making Committee solicited input from their campuses in order to develop the calendar. The staff was polled for their preference and there were 269 who answered the survey.
The top four suggestions, all of which are included in the calendar, were:
- two weeks off at Christmas
- one week off for Spring Break
- one week off for Thanksgiving
- one long weekend each month
The 2022-23 school year will begin Aug. 17 and conclude June 1. Thanksgiving vacation will be Nov. 21-25, Christmas break will be Dec. 19-Jan. 2 (staff development) and Spring Break will fall March 13-17.
In shifting from hours back to days for the 2022-23 school year, bad weather days will have to be made up, Young informed the board. Under the current hours system, enough hours were accumulated to prevent make up days.
Moving back to days was required in order to enact the new 30 days of optional summer classes. These days will not only include core subjects, but may also include areas such as fine arts, STEM, etc.
“This is one of the biggest reasons we went to the 180 days,” said BISD Deputy Superintendent Liesa Land. “In order to do this, we are required by the state to run a 180-day calendar. When you get asked why we’re adding eight days, this is one of the reasons.”
The additional school days will be June 7-8, June 12-15, June 19-22, June 26-29, July 10-13, July 17-20, July 24-27, and July 31-Aug. 3.
“I’m totally in favor of this,” said Board of Trustees member Eric Evans. “This is a great move of our kids, but it’s going to take a little bit of a paradigm shift in planning and preparation and what they do.”
Students will be permitted to attend as they wish, there are no mandatory requirements.
“These are optional school days that we are offering and it’s also come and go,” said BISD Superintendent Dr. Joe Young. “If you go to Disneyland in the middle of June, you can take your kid out, go to Disneyland and put them back in the next week. We think this is something that will help our community and help our kids tremendously.”
Brownwood ISD will be the only school in Region 15 with the 30-day summer option.
(story courtesy Derrick Stuckly of Brownwoodnews.com)