For the 2024-25 calendar, the district had a slightly earlier start date of Aug. 8, and it observed a number of student and teacher holidays in October in place of a fall break.
The details
The board of trustees will vote on approving the calendar at the Jan. 29 board meeting.
The calendar abided by the following guidelines mandated by the state:
- 75,600 minutes of instructional time, of which 2,100 minutes will be waived for staff personal development
- Two inclement weather makeup days
- One week for Thanksgiving and spring breaks
- Two weeks for winter break.
- A teacher planning day prior to each grading period
How we got here
The District Planning Advisory Council developed focus groups with students, parents and district staff starting in September, Stephanie Williams, Executive Director of Organizational Development said. Overall, the groups voted for a start date in the second week of August and aligning spring break with other neighboring districts. The groups also voted to observe holidays tied to a weekend rather than mid-week.
Williams said this is the first time in her tenure that every focus group voted for the same calendar.
“The top two positive attributes of the calendar were the full week of fall break and the placement of spring break. The third most positive was that this calendar was the most balanced, related to semesters and across the other components,” Williams said.
The background
Passed in May 2022, FBISD’s Local Innovation Plan provided flexibility to allow the school year to start before the fourth week of August. Board President Kristin Tassin said the later start date caused teachers to “cram” until Thanksgiving break to achieve all the learning objectives in time for the fall semester. Starting earlier in the school year allows for a break before the start of the first semester, Tassin said.
“The point of the District of Innovation [designation] was for us to balance, and then that sort of required sort of a break in there, because what we were finding was burnout with kids and burnout with teachers,” Tassin said. “If [the break] coincided with a grading period, then that was much better, because you could finish everything up, they could take their fall break, and then they could come back fresh and start again.”
What's next
The board will approve the calendar for the next board meeting Jan. 29. Following its approval, the administration will submit waiver minutes for staff development to the state through an online process.
