During its Jan. 24 meeting, the board approved the 175-school-day calendar, which maintains a traditional holiday structure, including a weeklong Thanksgiving break, a two-week winter break and a weeklong spring break. Final exams and the first semester will conclude before winter break, the school year will conclude prior to Memorial Day, according to a Jan. 24 meeting report.
Maintaining an early end to the school year was one of three main issues raised by the district’s stakeholders during a monthslong calendar development process that included teachers; principals; district leaders; a District Planning and Advisory Committee to support developing priority guidelines for draft calendars; and a Calendar Committee comprised of students, staff, teachers, principals, parents, community members, and a board member to review draft calendars aligned to the guidelines, according to the report. Ensuring an adequate length of the summer and concerns around adding minutes to the school day were the other main concerns.
In its survey designed to gather public input on three calendar options, 1,391 teachers responded out of the 4,816 teachers working in the school district, said Board Member Judy Dae. This is out of 6,066 total survey responses received.
The week before the board’s vote on the calendar, Dae said she had received emails and text messages from teachers about their concerns regarding the early start date.
“I just wanted to tell the teachers that we do hear your voices and we do put your concerns in consideration, but maybe in the future, you can give us some feedback ahead of time,” Dae said to those teachers during the meeting.
Dae also suggested that next year’s calendar selection process consider other groups, including fine arts teachers and elementary school teachers, as well as bus drivers and facility workers who need to work before school starts.
Other board members, including Angie Hanan, expressed support of the new calendar.
“I think the calendar as presented really represented a win-win where the team in Fort Bend [ISD] tried to identify the most winners based on opinions and diving more deeply into comments,” Hanan said. “I hear Ms. Dae that there is room for improvement, but I support the Calendar Committee and the work they did.”
