Houston Schools is adopting a new approach with its academic calendar that is more predictable and less affected by inclement weather.
Superintendent Scott Dill, who studied calendars adopted by other school districts in the state, presented the calendar for the 2014-’15 academic year at last Tuesday’s special school board meeting. It is an hours-based approach that replaces the traditional 174-day calendar of the district.
Among the biggest features in the new calendar are built-in snow days, the elimination of early release Wednesdays and milestone days that are already established. Dates such as graduation and the final day of classes that previously were set late in the winter following missed snow days are already established. Graduation in 2015 will be May 9 and the last day of school will be May 15.
“This approach offers a level of predictability not seen before in the calendar for the Houston School District,” Dill said.
Dill began considering a new approach as snow days continued to pile up this year. The district missed its 19th day due to inclement weather on Monday.
The new calendar, which was approved unanimously by the board, has 10 snow days built into the end of the school year. Five other dates have been established as makeup days if there are more than 10 missed days.
The calendar has 1,118 hours without snow days. With snow days, the district will still meet the state requirement of 1,044 hours.
“Because the snow days are built into the calendar, the days off are pretty much set in stone,” Dill said. “If we have no snow days, we will go 171 days and dismiss school on May 15. If we have 10 snow days, we will go 161 days and still dismiss on May 15.”
Dill said he surveyed teachers for feedback on the current early release Wednesdays, which are used weekly for professional development. What he discovered was teachers in the elementary school, who assist students in the bus and car rider lines, regularly have less than an hour to participate in the meetings.
Beginning next year, the district will have five full days of professional development for instructors. The meetings will be on Mondays to allow teachers to implement any changes or decisions immediately into the classroom the following day. To maintain weekly communication, Dill said core teachers in every building would have common planning times to collaborate weekly with their peers.
“While weekly professional development was great, sometimes it was difficult to dig deeply into the data and have in-depth conversations because we were really pushing the clock,” Dill said. “With the professional development days, we will have hours available to us rather than minutes.”
PDF: Houston Schools’ 2014-’15 academic calendar