Lewisville ISD approves 2021-22 calendar

The Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees approved the academic calendar for the 2021-22 school year during Monday’s board meeting.

The board approved calendar Option A, with key dates including Aug. 11, a Wednesday, as the first day of school, Nov. 22-26 as the Thanksgiving holiday, Dec. 20 to Jan. 4 as winter break, March 14-18 as spring break and May 24 as the last day of school.

Option A was the preferred choice for 54 percent of the residents who voted in a calendar survey that ran Dec. 16 to Jan. 4. Option B received 46 percent of the votes.

Options A and B were nearly identical, except Option B proposed an extra day of spring break, an extra student holiday in February and the last day of school falling on May 26.

The Calendar Committee convened in October to review input from various stakeholders, and in November several calendar options were presented to multiple community groups. The committee initially had eight calendar options but narrowed them down to two.

Calendar options A and B each met the state requirements of learning minutes by providing more than 75,600 minutes.

Late last year the board also made changes to the 2020-21 calendar because of uncertainty over the COVID-19 pandemic.

The board voted to make Feb. 15 a staff holiday.

It was originally set to be a professional learning day for teachers. But during the work session Superintendent Kevin Rogers said a holiday for teachers would be beneficial that day.

The board also approved a change that will make March 8 a teacher work day to allow additional time to process schedule changes at the beginning of the fourth nine weeks.

Making these changes will use two of LISD’s 7.5 banked days it has accumulated when it approved extending the school day by 25 minutes.

Rogers expects more discussion in the coming weeks about additional calendar changes as the district continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.