Board approves 2025-26 academic calendar
DRIPPING SPRINGS — There will be extra minutes added to each school day for the 2025-26 school year in Dripping Springs ISD.
This follows the DSISD Board of Trustees unanimously approving the 2025-26 academic calendar during the consent agenda portion of its Dec. 16, 2024, meeting. To reduce the total number of instructional days during the school year, 10 minutes have been added to each school day.
The District Advisory Council collaboratively developed and sought feedback on the annual academic calendar for board consideration. The following requirements or recommendations make up the foundation of the academic calendar:
• The calendar must include a minimum of 75,600 instructional minutes
• The calendar must include 187 teacher contract days
• The calendar should level the number of days per semester to the extent possible
• The calendar should allow for a half-or full-day student holiday on the Friday of Founders’ Weekend taking place the fourth week in April
• Spring break aligns with Austin Community College, as well as other surrounding districts
• The professional learning days embedded within the academic calendar provide an opportunity for staff development, planning and elementary parent/teacher conferencing.
• The Texas Education Agency allows districts to submit a waiver for the minutes students are not in instruction for staff professional learning after the first day of school for a total of 2,100 minutes. With 10 minutes being added to each school day, this allows for the instructional calendar to have a full 75,650 minutes without the waiver and an additional 2,100 minutes if a waiver is applied, according to agenda documents.
“Just with our instruction of 170 days at 445 minutes, that would get us to 75,650 minutes, so we will be flush with where we are supposed to be,” explained DSISD Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Innovation Karen Kidd. “So, if we have a weather event or if we have some kind of breakdown, we won’t have to do the bad weather make-up days because we will have the waiver — the 2,100, I will still ask for a waiver next year — and then we would have some cushion to not have to come back for bad weather days.”
Trustee Rob McClelland said that he is grateful that the new academic calendar reflects that the district is out of school before Memorial Day next year.
“Dr. Kidd, one of the first conversations you and I had about the District Advisory Council was the calendar in the year that we got out after Memorial Day and I said, ‘Dr. Kidd, please. On behalf of our parents, most of them anyways, let’s get out before Memorial Day,’” he explained. “Thank you for finding a way to do that. I think there's two benefits for that. Number one, our ADA (average daily attendance) rate. We know what happens after Memorial Day, right? Those days we get crushed and we know how important that is from a financial perspective … But also, number two, our folks really like to get out after graduation and get after things and go celebrate.”
Another trustee, Tricia Quintero, questioned to ensure that the teachers are in favor of the extension of the school days.
“Yes, I’ve had 27 comments and most of them were positive. Some were wondering about that, but overall, even with our leadership team and our [District Advisory Council], that was easily swallowable to say, ‘Let's do this, make it 170 instructional days,’” Kidd responded. “You don't see it in the calendar, but it provides work days for teachers to plan to put in grades. You’re seeing it all as [professional development], but we have an internal document to say right around the grading period, it’s going to be a work day.”
School times for the 2025-26 school year will be as follows.
Elementary School Times: 7:40 a.m. - 3:05 p.m.
Secondary School Times: 8:50 a.m. - 4:15 p.m.
First Day of School: Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025 Last Day of School: Friday, May 22, 2026 Also in consent, the board approved the submission of the Staff Development Waiver for the 2024-25 school year to the Texas Education Agency. According to agenda documents, districts must obtain board approval before submitting the Staff Development Waiver to TEA.
Effective since the 201819 school year, the waiver provides a maximum of 2,100 total waiver minutes for district professional development, according to the district. This waiver is for staff development in place of student instruction; therefore, the waiver minutes are only applicable to staff development provided staff receive structured, high-quality development opportunities that will positively influence student outcomes, according to agenda documents.
The DSISD Board of Trustees will meet next at 6 p.m. on Jan. 21.
