The Plano ISD board of trustees unanimously approved the new calendar Nov. 3, though trustee Heather Wang was absent from the meeting. The new calendar will include 84 instructional days during the first semester and 91 during the second. Classes begin on a Wednesday for both the first and second semesters next year.
The district’s winter break next year will run from Dec. 19, 2022-Jan. 2, 2023, followed by a staff work day Jan. 3 and students returning on Jan. 4. PISD’s 2023 spring break will be March 6-10, followed by a staff work day March 13 and students returning to classes March 14.
Staff considered several factors when putting together the calendars, Senior Executive Director for Communications Lesley Range-Stanton told the board Oct. 19. Those factors included community preferences, the 75,600 instructional minutes required by the state, balanced semesters, testing calendars, alignment with Collin College dual-credit courses, placement and duration of breaks, student activities and graduation.
"We want to be student focused when we're thinking about the calendar," Range-Stanton said Oct. 19.
Staff also received feedback on the draft calendars presented to the board in October from the PISD Student Advisory Council, district executives, the faculty council, representatives from district parent-teacher associations and campus leadership.
"I appreciate the modifications [that were made to previous draft versions, and] I also really appreciate [the calendar] being done so early," board Secretary Jeri Chambers said. "Parents are always asking us to get it done early, so a lot of really good things happened in terms of listening [to feedback] and making those changes."
PISD teachers will begin the next school year with a staff development work day Aug. 3, 2022, and they will have four additional staff development days during the school year that will be student holidays. The district also listed April 6 and 10—both of which are scheduled holidays for students and teachers—as inclement weather days in case they are needed for instruction.
