Four-day school week topic to be considered in GISD calendar discussions

Graham ISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse said last Wednesday the district has started the 2023-2024 school calendar development process, with the topic of moving to a four-day school week to be considered as planning begins.

The district calendars are created by the district Calendar Committee containing staff, parents and community members who establish several draft calendars which are narrowed down to two for school board approval. During a superintendent update Wednesday, Sept. 14, Cruse said the district will potentially discuss a four-day school week.

“We have four calendar committee meetings scheduled between now and Christmas break, with the goal of being able to (...) hopefully present a calendar to the board for approval as early as January, if not February, for sure. The hot topic that will be discussed this year with the calendar development process will probably be the four-day week,” Cruse said. “I’ve been in some conversations since the start of school with (Superintendent) Dr. (John) Kuhn over at Mineral Wells, because they’re the closest school similar to us and they made the decision last summer to do that. So it’ll be interesting to talk to them. I’ll talk to him the next couple of weeks to see (...) their early-on process and then we’ll also probably go to visit some schools to get a good grasp of that. But I know that’s going to be one of the most asked questions as we go into that process.”

In January, the Board of Trustees requested a plan to help retain staff, with an emphasis on teaching staff within the district. 

For the full story, see the Wednesday, Sept. 21 edition of The Graham Leader.