Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, the instructional time required for Texas students will change from being measured by the number of days in the school year to being measured by the number of minutes in a school day.
The change is required by House Bill 2610, passed by the 84th Texas Legislature in 2015. Schools no longer are required to have 180 days of instruction per year. Schools are now required to provide at least 75,600 minutes of instruction per year, including intermissions and recess.
The bill also allows school districts to add minutes as necessary to compensate for time lost due to school closures caused by disaster, flood, extreme weather conditions, etc.
In previous years, the start and end times for Lamar CISD’s secondary schools (grades 6-12) exceeded the new requirement by approximately 2,000 minutes per year, while elementary schools (K-5) were roughly 2,000 minutes below the new requirement.
To comply with the new law, elementary schools will adjust from 415 minutes per day to 430 minutes per day, while secondary schools will change from 445 minutes per day to 435 minutes per day.
The new start times and end times for Lamar CISD schools will be as follows:
Elementary: 7:30 a.m. – 2:40 p.m. (430 minutes)
Secondary: 8:15 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. (435 minutes)
The Board-approved 2016-2017 Instructional Calendar and the new start and end times reflect the requirements of HB 2610. While bad weather make-up days are required to be on the calendar, the changes for 2016-2017 remove the need to make-up the first two bad weather days.
Teacher and staff report times will start and end 15 minutes earlier at the elementary level.
Secondary teacher and staff report times will remain the same.
The District does not foresee major changes to school bus transportation, since most elementary school buses already unload students on campus at 7 a.m.
The instructional calendar for the 2016-2017 school year can be found here.