Houston ISD Extends School Days At 12 Campuses

HOUSTON, TX — The Houston ISD will make up for lost time and missed days by tacking on more time to each school day for 12 campuses. HISD Board of trustees, in the first meeting since Hurricane Harvey postponed the beginning of school, approved longer days for a handful of schools, including Bellaire High, Northside High and Liberty High School.

The Board also eliminated five previously-scheduled early dismissal days to help make up for lost instructional time in the classroom, and not just having warm bodies filling seats in this make-up time.

"There is no perfect solution," HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza said. "And as we talked about over the course of this weather event, flexibility will be key. But we are also making sure the extra time is not just seat time."

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Most of the district's 218,000 students began classes on Sept. 11, but 12 campuses began after that. Five of those schools — Bellaire High, Northside High, Key Middle, Mitchell Elementary and Robinson Elementary — will have an additional 25 minutes extra built into each day to accommodate lost days. The other seven campuses — Liberty High, Forest Brook Middle, Braeburn Elementary, R.P. Harris Elementary, Hilliard Elementary, Kolter Elementary, and Scarborough Elementary — will have an additional 55 minutes per day.

The extended days will begin on each of the respective school's first day of classes and will go through the first semester. They will return to their regular schedules for the spring semester. Because Bellaire High School already has additional time built into its day, it opted out of the board-approved additional 25 minutes.

The original first day of school in HISD, and the last-possible day to start school in the state per TEA, was Monday, Aug. 28. However, Hurricane Harvey blasted the Texas coast beginning Aug. 25 and dumped more than 50 inches of rain in many parts of the Houston region. HISD postponed the first day of school and all school-related activities until Sept. 11.

During last week's Board meeting, Carranza also announced the HISD Foundation’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund has raised more than $1.3 million. That money will be used to help with the recovery efforts of the district as it attempts to help families become whole following the storm.

HISD has already started using some of those funds to feed families, purchase items that students need, and distribute donations from drop-off sites to the families that need them most.

Also on Thursday, trustees approved the renaming of the HISD Food Services Support Facility the Hexser T. Holliday Food Services Support Center. Holliday was the Assistant Superintendent of Food Services, the first black Food Services Director in HISD, and one of the first to hold that position in the country.

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