GISD continues modified four-day calendar for 2024-2025 school year

The 2024-2025 Graham ISD school calendar will remain as a modified four-day calendar after approval from the GISD Board of Trustees this week.

It was reported to the board in November 2023 that the Graham ISD Calendar Committee had begun the planning process for establishing a calendar for the 2024-2025 school year.

The district’s calendars are created by the committee, made up of staff, parents and community members, who establish several drafts which are narrowed down to two for school board approval. The committee reviewed parent, guardian and staff data regarding the modified four-day school calendar and worked to create two calendar drafts.

The committee was considering various options which were discussed and narrowed down.

The GISD board met Wednesday, Feb. 14 and reviewed survey data sent out last week to parents/guardians and staff of the district with the two calendar choices.

“Very little difference between the two calendar choices,” Superintendent Sonny Cruse said. “The calendar committee did work through that process. …We waited until after UIL realignment because the overall thought was to still stay with the four-day week, which we knew last year when we did it that was probably what we were going to do.”

The board chose Calendar Option B which was the majority of what staff and parents/guardians said they would prefer on the calendar survey.

Of the 158 responses from parents/guardians, 88.6% voted for Calendar Option B. Of the 275 staff responses, 73.1% voted for Calendar Option B.

With Calendar Option B there are 159 student days, 172 staff days and school starts Wednesday, Aug. 14 and ends Thursday, May 22, 2025. Professional development and teacher work days will be Aug. 6-14, Sept. 27, Oct. 21, Nov. 15, Jan. 6, Feb. 7, Feb. 21 and May 23.

The Fridays this year that students will have off due to the four-day school cycle will be Aug. 23, Sept. 13, Oct. 4, Oct. 18, Nov. 8, Jan. 17, Jan. 31, Feb. 14, Feb. 28, March 7, March 28, April 4, April 18, May 9 and May 16.

The GISD Board of Trustees spoke about preliminary calendar planning during their meeting Nov. 8, 2023.

The superintendent said in November that one of the topics that drove the calendar committee to establish the modified four-day week calendar was alignment with out-of-town football games.

“Logistically, from a business standpoint and logistic running of the district, that really worked well this year because transportation is much easier when you don't have to worry about afternoon routes and then getting buses back in time to travel (with) band, travel (with) dance, travel (with) all the other groups, that really works out well,” Cruse said.

Four-day survey

In October 2023, the district sent a survey to parents, guardians and staff to gain their insight on the move to the partial four-day week calendar for the 2023-2024 school year.

There were 352 parent and guardian responses to the survey with 48.9% highly in favor of the current modified four-day week calendar, 21.6% somewhat in favor, 12.5% somewhat opposed and 17% highly opposed.

A total of 72.7% of the 352 respondents were in favor of staying with the modified version of the four-day week calendar and 27.3% were in favor of moving back to a traditional five-day week calendar.

There were 212 GISD employee responses with 76.4% highly in favor of the current modified four-day calendar and 18.4% somewhat in favor. A total of 97.2% of GISD employees would prefer a version of a four-day week calendar rather than moving to a five-day week calendar.