Longer summers are what children and adults want, and for the school districts of Texas, this desire will be fulfilled at least for this year. The Texas Legislature has passed House Bill 1 that requires all schools to begin on August 27 or later, two weeks after the normal date. The law was passed to save on summer utility costs. What this means for Alief is a newly revised calendar and more questions yet to be answered.

Even though next year’s calendar will not be finalized until the board meeting in February, two things have been decided: the first day of school, Monday, August 27, and the week of Spring Break, March 17-21. Sarah Winkler, President of the School Board of Education, however, disagrees with the new law. She believes starting school two weeks later will not make much of a difference.

“We have training all summer long on campuses and we have summer school, so some of the utilities are being used in the summer, too,” Winkler said. “[The state controller] was saying it would save energy if we started later and they pushed for it and it got through. Most school districts don’t agree, but we don’t have any choice.”

Starting school in the middle of the week has always been customary in Alief, but with the new law passed, the district will start on a Monday.

“The whole state will probably be starting on the 27th, Winkler said. “I’ve heard of a couple that are waiting to start on the 29th, so they don’t have to start on a Monday. We normally start in the middle of the week, so you have a short week to start out with a chance to get your feet wet and get your school supplies. We don’t want to wait two more days to start, so we’re going to start on Monday. It makes it a little harder for people to jump into, not just kids, but teachers and parents too.”

Beginning two weeks later will also mean these 14 days will have to be made up during the year. Alief is required to maintain 177 days in a school year. This will affect how the two semesters will be divided. Since the year will start late, the first semester will have to continue into January, which Winkler dislikes.

“I’m worried about having finals after Christmas,” Winkler said. “Since we’re starting on August 27, finals will have to be after Christmas, which means you’ll still have school work over the holidays. Then you’ll come back for maybe a week and a half, and then you’ll have to have finals. I don’t think that’s good for high school students personally, but if we end before Christmas, there would be a huge difference between semesters. There will be anywhere from 14 to 17 days’ difference and that’s too many.”

To avoid finals after the winter break, adjustments will have to be made to student holidays to ensure that the semesters are more or less balanced.

“You can have a longer second semester because TAKS is second semester,” Winkler said. “TAKS you can throw out, because you can't do instructions [during these days], but 17 more days in the second semester is too many.”

Winkler worries that if the semester ends before winter break, the huge difference will affect the curriculum of some courses. If one semester does have fewer days than the other, Winkler believes students will be at a disadvantage.

“If you’re in an AP class, there’s a certain amount you need to teach, for instance,” Winkler said. “If you have 17 days left to teach it in one semester than the other, how are you going to get all of that in? I mean, you can’t. So when that student goes to take that AP test and they haven’t finished all of the curriculum, how are they going to get a decent score on the test?”

The District Improvement Committee, which is made up of teachers, parents, community members, and administrators, makes recommendations to the school board on what they would like to see on the calendar. Winkler said there will be a retreat in a few weeks where the board will make a final decision. As of now, two calendars have been proposed.

“We’ve passed one projected calendar forward that ends in May and one that ends in June,” Winkler said. “One has a week in Thanksgiving; one has a three-day Thanksgiving.”

Winkler dislikes the idea of ending school in June, not only because of the heat of the summer, bur for other reasons as well. According to Winkler, most college summer courses start in the beginning of June, and if school were to end in June, it will interfere with this schedule. Instead of ending the year later, Winkler favors the idea of taking days off the Thanksgiving and winter breaks.

“I think there’s too many holidays so close together, that you kind of get off track,” Winkler said. “For instance, you came back [from winter break] and you’re here a little while, then you have Martin Luther King Day, a bad weather day, and a field testing day for TAKS. It’s too off and on, off and on to get a rhythm going, so having a little shorter Thanksgiving and maybe a little bit shorter Christmas will not be so bad from my perspective as a parent.”

On the other hand, Richard Gonzalez, theatre teacher and member of the District Improvement Committee wishes to keep the holidays as they are and has no problem with ending school in June.

“I don’t agree with the shorter Thanksgiving Break,” Gonzalez said. “I think that we’ve become very accustomed to week off here in this district, and we plan a lot around it. I have to be selfish; I like having a week off for Thanksgiving. I would say if we’re starting late August, I’m okay with going into June because I think it evens out with what we have now.”

Based on his previous experiences, Gonzalez believes the district will make a fair decision, one that reflects the majority of the voters.

“One thing I can say that the district is great about is that they are very aware of what their employees want,” Gonzalez said. “Our district was kind enough to send out drafts to ask for feedback because they referred it to the EIC [Education Improvement Council] and then they brought it to the campuses. Then they allowed the workforce to vote on it. They didn’t have to do that, and they could have just approved it.”

While Winkler is dissatisfied with aspects of both proposed calendars, she believes that if Alief is not able to overcome the changes, something will be done.

“We’re going to be stuck with this, for sure, for two years,” Winkler said. “If the legislature changes their minds, we’ll be switched back to the other way again. They’ve done it before.”