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Liberty Hill ISD students will attend school for five days a week for a majority of next school year.
The board of trustees approved the academic calendar for the 2026-27 school year March 9.
This school year, the district adopted a hybrid calendar with mostly four-day school weeks in which Fridays served as teacher work days. In January, LHISD was required to add some Fridays back to its calendar after the Texas Education Agency denied the district’s staff development waiver.
The overview
In the new academic calendar, 61% of school weeks have five school days while 39% have four school days. This school year, 73% of school weeks had less than five school days prior to the district adding some additional Fridays back this spring, LHISD Superintendent Travis Motal said.
During three school weeks from September to February, students will not attend school from Thursday to Monday.
Compared to this school year, the 2026-27 calendar has eight additional school days, including four bad weather days, and is built around an instructional day that is 20 minutes shorter. The district may consider shortening the instructional day at middle and high schools by only 15 minutes, Motal said.
The 2026-27 academic calendar includes the following key dates:
The backstory
For many weeks during this school year, students did not attend school on Fridays to allow teachers and staff to have work days and professional development time.
District officials said the hybrid calendar was meant to better support staff members amid budget cuts and larger class sizes. The district made $8 million in budget cuts over the last two fiscal years, including cutting nearly 80 positions, and realized a $2 million budget deficit in FY 2024-25.
This school year, many LHISD teachers received a 2% pay raise after state lawmakers increased school funding during the 2025 legislative session. Additionally, the district provided a 1% pay raise for all staff members following a November election in which voters approved a $0.07 per $100 valuation tax rate increase.
“We can pay [teachers] as much as we want, but again, if they don't have time to help meet all the individual needs of the students in the room [and] to help prepare the best lessons ... they're not going to be successful,” Motal said at the March 9 meeting.
In case you missed it
The current 2025-26 calendar assumed the district would receive state approval for a waiver to allocate 2,100 minutes of required instructional time for students toward professional development for staff.
This semester, LHISD asked students to return to school on six additional Fridays that were not previously included in the calendar after the district’s staff development waiver was denied by the TEA. Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, the agency stopped approving staff development waivers for districts with a four-day-school-week calendar, according to TEA information.
LHISD officials believed the district would still qualify for the TEA waiver as in years past “as district staff works five days per week operationally,” according to the district’s website. The district received approval for a staff development in the 2024-25 school year, during which 59% of school weeks had five days, Motal said.
At the March 9 meeting, the board approved applying for a staff development waiver next school year.
"There is no directive from TEA on it, even when asked," school board President Megan Parsons said about applying for the waiver. "They've come back and said 'Well, you'll just have to see."
Something to note
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said four-day school weeks were bad for student learning at a Texas House Public Education Committee hearing last year.
A 2025 report from the agency found that students at a district with a four-day school week performed worse than students attending districts with a five-day school week. The study looked at student performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness in sixth through eighth grade reading and fourth through sixth grade math during the 2022-23 school year.
Some state grants and allotments have prioritized districts with traditional five-day school weeks and more instructional days in their calendar, Motal said.
What they’re saying
In LHISD’s survey of around 5,000 parents, staff and students, 66.1% or respondents said they preferred an innovative calendar with a majority of four-day school weeks. Of LHISD staff members, 72.5% said they preferred the four-day calendar, while 54.2% of parents preferred the four-day calendar.
Some board members said they believed the state was pressuring the district to adopt a five-day calendar despite many community members favoring the four-day school week structure.
“They're going to do everything in their power to make us eventually go back to a traditional five-day,” trustee Michael Ferguson said. “Are we not just running into the inevitable that is eventually ... the state's going to mandate us to go back to the five day?”
Next steps
The district is aiming to complete a transportation audit on how to make its bus routes more efficient by late March or early April, Motal said. Once complete, district officials will announce the bell schedules for next school year, he said.
