Have You Shared Your Thoughts About Next Year's Calendar?

Our school district is closed for the Winter Break, and we hope that you and your family are having a joyful holiday season. Just a reminder to our staff, parents, and community that you have until January 2, 2012, to give the district your thoughts about next year's Academic Calendar.

Designing an academic calendar for a school district is a complex issue; however, in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, we keep student achievement in the forefront when making decisions.

At the end of this week's Focus Points are two links: a link to a survey and a link to the proposed academic calendar.

The proposed academic calendar is very similar to this year’s calendar in terms of the following:

• The same basic holiday schedule including Thanksgiving and Winter Break
• Ending the first semester before the Winter Break (that means our middle and high school students will take their first semester exams before Winter Break)

When we develop an academic school calendar in C-FB ISD, there are criteria that the district must follow. These include:

• State law requires that we cannot start school before the fourth Monday in August. (Texas Education Code 25.0811) This law went into effect with the 2007-08 school year.

• Texas currently requires that the public school year contain 180 days for students; however, districts may obtain waivers for up to five fewer student attendance days for professional development purposes.

• The 2012-13 school calendar proposal includes 177 days for students, and the district will ask for a waiver for three student days for professional development time for staff. These days are Oct. 8 (Fair Day), Nov. 19, 21 (days before Thanksgiving). This request is consistent with previous C-FB ISD calendars. 

• Under the expedited waiver system, a school district may apply for six early release days. These days are allowable through Texas Education Code 25.082. The current calendar proposal has six early release days already scheduled (two days at the end of each semester) and two for staff development (October 3 and February 3 – consistent with this year’s calendar dates).

The Texas Education Agency has not provided a testing calendar for 2012-2013 at this time. We don’t know when the agency will determine state testing dates. As soon as the state’s testing calendar is available, we will make it available to the campuses, parents and community.

That is the basic information about the 2012-2013 C-FB ISD Proposed Academic Calendar.  We hope that you will take time to review the proposed academic calendar and then give us your input.

Link to the 2012-2013 C-FB ISD Proposed Academic Calendar

 

Link to the calendar survey