The Brownwood ISD school board got their first look at the proposed 2012-2013 school calendar which will have a total of 177 instructional days for students as it has had for the last couple of years, but will also cut short some holidays time due to some state constraints.
“One of the big talking points you might notice is that Christmas break is only 8 days for the students and that would leave 7 days for the teachers,” said Brownwood ISD Superintendent Reece Blincoe.
Officials said that state regulations were a big problem in putting together the new school calendar that would balance out the semesters, give adequate instructional days, and provide student and teacher holidays.
“By law, we cannot start school until the fourth Monday in August,” Blincoe said. “This year, that is almost the latest date possible which will be the 27th of August. If you look back on this year’s calendar, we are able to start on the 22nd of August which was the fourth Monday. That in and of itself makes a real tight first semester. That is why you will see the semester go all the way through the 21st of December.”
The district’s EIC Committee comprised of 42 members with representatives from school administration, teachers, community members, and local business put together the calendar, and representatives from that committee said that they feel this is the best choice based on the state constraints.
“Nobody just loved it, but because of all of the constraints we had that this seemed to be what we all felt was the best we could do,” said Brownwood Middle School principal and committee member Bryan Allen. “If we could start earlier it would help, but the state restricts us on that.”
Blincoe made it clear that he was not pleased with the end result of the calendar due to the state regulations taking away much of the local control.
“The state has almost totally taken away our ability to make a calendar,” Blincoe said. “We are an inch away from having a state mandated calendar because of the testing dates; because of the mandatory start dates. It’s just horrible.”
The school board may draft a resolution soon to express their dismay at the constraints that the state puts on creating a local school calendar.
“This community and this board are well capable of putting together a very nice calendar,” Blincoe said. “Let our community and our school board put together a school calendar that best fits our community.”
State mandatory testing days were also a big issue regarding the calendar with 45 days of testing on the schedule for the next year between end of course exams, TAKS tests, and the new STARR testing which had to be taken into consideration on the calendar as well, officials said.
If approved by the school board next month, student days off for the 2012-2013 school year will include:
Sept. 3 – Labor Day
Oct. 8 – Student Holiday/Staff Development
Nov. 21-23 – Thanksgiving
Dec 24-Jan 2 – Christmas
Jan 21 – MLK Holiday
Feb 18 – Student Holiday/Staff Development
March 11-15 – Spring Break
March 29 – Good Friday
May 27 – Memorial Day
May 30 – Last Day of School
