School districts across greater Houston are working to determine if they need to add extra days to their academic calendars or extra minutes to their school days to make up two days missed this week due to icy weather.
Area students have already missed two weeks or more of classes during the current school year as a result of Hurricane Harvey and the flooding it triggered.
Some of the area’s largest districts — including Houston and Cypress-Fairbanks — have already announced they will likely need to add at least one day to the school year after canceling classes Tuesday and Wednesday. The Cy-Fair and Humble school districts said students will no longer have a day off on Monday, Feb. 19, which will instead be used as a make-up day. That date had already been set aside as a make-up day in the event of unexpected school closures.
Houston ISD Superintendent Richard Carranza said Wednesday that his district, Texas’ largest, would likely need to add two instructional days to its academic year.
“We’re going to try to avoid adding days onto the end of the year. It wreaks havoc on graduation schedules, and lots of students and families have announced dates and have people flying in,” Carranza said. “We’ll do everything in our power to avoid tacking onto the end of the school year.”
As I recall, the last time HISD had to do this they added one day at the end of the year, and also opened schools on Memorial Day. I won’t be surprised if that’s on the table for this year, much to my girls’ dismay. It is what it is, and as noted at the end of the story, we all better hope for good weather from here on out. They’ll let us know when they know.