2020-21 school calendar: Students may have earlier start dates, longer winter breaks, TEA says

School districts would have to vote on new calendar

FILE (Geoff Crimmins, The Moscow-Pullman Daily News)

SAN ANTONIO – The coronavirus pandemic has caused a lot of unknown situations for teachers, students and their parents with one school year coming to a close and another right around the corner.

A new report from the Texas Education Agency is providing possible guidance on what parents and students may expect in the 2020-2021 school year.

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The upcoming school year is likely to be disrupted, according to the TEA, but a new calendar may be implemented to address learning loss, considering campuses have remained closed since mid-March.

Changes may include an earlier start date, a long winter break and a later end date, according to the guidelines. Thanksgiving breaks and Spring Breaks could also be longer, according to the sample intersessional calendar.

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A longer winter break would be in place in case there is a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, according to TEA.

The school year would also see more remote learning and staggered in-person attendance.

An extra six weeks of intersessional breaks could be used for remediation, acceleration or enrichment, or in the case of a resurgence, or for bad weather makeup days.

“Students not mastering content could return for the intersession week for remediation,” officials say.

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The calendar has not been implemented, as the changes are just guidelines.

Districts that are interested in implementing the calendar redesign must obtain board approval, make master scheduling adjustments, develop plans and take other steps before the school year begins.

“Calendar revisions require substantial change management including school board adoption that requires immediate action,” according to the TEA report.

Read the full TEA document below:

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About the Author:

Rebecca Salinas is an award-winning digital journalist who joined KSAT in 2019. She reports on a variety of topics for KSAT 12 News.