On Feb. 25, the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees voted to approve changes to the calendar for the 2021-22 school year. Changes include moving the first day of school from Aug. 11 to Aug. 17 and pushing the last day of school from May 25, 2022 to May 27, 2022.

CISD adopts calendars every two years. The 2021-22 calendar was originally approved in January 2020, but changes were made to accommodate new information the board learned this year from COVID-19 and winter weather. Assistant superintendent for administrative services Kristen Streeter led the process for deciding which changes needed to be made.

“We got input from our families and our educators about some positive things we learned this year that they wanted implemented for next year,” Streeter said. “The fact that we were starting earlier and earlier in August was a little bit of a concern, even when the calendar was adopted. After the year that we’ve had, it’s just been extra challenging for everybody.”

The calendar was adjusted for teachers and students to have an easier time adjusting to learning next year, as well as to accommodate the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) awaited decision on in person or remote learning for the 2021-22 school year. Professional development and early release days were added to give teachers more time to plan in their classrooms.

“There had been input about pushing the start date to a little bit later in August for planning purposes, because we’re still waiting to hear from TEA whether or not for next year we can do in person teaching as well as remote,” Streeter said. “We [think] we won’t get that answer till close to the end of this year or even the beginning of summer, so [the board] felt like having a little bit of extra time to plan for what that might look like would be a positive.”

With the increased number of flex professional development days for the staff comes more time off from school for students. Still, the board was careful to maintain TEA’s minimum requirement of 75,600 minutes of instruction.

“[The revised calendar] honors all the breaks we usually give,” Coppell High School Principal Laura Springer said. “It also centers around a couple of long weekends, so families can have vacation time other than the normal vacations we’ve had.”

Streeter thinks the hardest part will be making Coppell aware of the adjusted calendar.

“The biggest adjustment is making sure the changes are communicated so families and staff members can plan for them,” Streeter said. “The planning will be fairly easy for individuals because we are starting a little bit later, so there shouldn’t be a big impact on anybody’s summer vacation plans.”

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