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Liberty Hill ISD board approves 2025–26 calendar that ends before Memorial Day
Summary
After debate balancing longer instructional days against fewer school days, trustees approved a 2025–26 calendar that reduces student days to 157 by adding daily minutes and designating Fridays for professional learning and teacher work time.
The Liberty Hill ISD Board of Trustees voted to approve a revised 2025–26 school calendar that shortens the student year by three days while adding instructional minutes and repurposing several Fridays for district professional learning.
Assistant Superintendent Travis Motel presented the option that shifts the school year to end before Memorial Day by moving from 160 student days to 157 student days, while keeping 187 staff days by adding roughly 10–15 minutes to each school day to bank instructional time. The proposal marks two May dates as bad‑weather makeup days and positions graduation on the Friday after classes end.
Motel said the district will provide a menu of professional‑learning options for those Friday mornings; afternoons on those days would remain teacher work time. He also described procedures to document professional learning for TEA reporting (about 2,100 minutes required for certain credits).
Trustees discussed tradeoffs: some said ending before Memorial Day improves community satisfaction and staff planning, while others cited concerns about attendance after the holiday and the additional minutes lengthening each day. Several trustees and principals emphasized that principals should retain flexibility to design campus‑level sessions.
The board approved the calendar by voice vote. Administration said next steps include finalizing start/end times after transportation and campus input, publishing the calendar and communicating details to families and staff.
"It's not the amount of days, it's what we do with the days we have," Superintendent Snell said during the discussion.
The approved calendar also preserves time for state‑required elementary reading academies and allows campuses discretion for targeted sessions such as ESL or GT support.
