Seguin ISD talks ‘21-22 calendar, intersession days

Felicia Frazar The Seguin Gazette

Seguin ISD is looking to potentially change up its annual calendar to give students additional learning opportunities.

The past several months, the Teacher Communication Council and a calendar committee — made up of teachers and parents — have discussed the possibility of an intersessional calendar. This style of calendar incorporates extra days into the school year for students who need extra education assistance with closing the academic gaps.

“The intersession calendar is a calendar that creates short breaks during the school year to be able to provide intervention for students in a timely manner,” Seguin ISD Superintendent Matthew Gutierrez told the school board during its regular monthly meeting. “We’re accustomed to intervention taking place either after school, during tutoring or on Saturdays, or in the summer, when it is really too late. I think after having the opportunity to visit AJ Briesemeister (Thursday) … I saw firsthand the importance of being able to provide intervention to students during the day during their tag block.”

During that time, all students and teachers were laser focused on a core subject, Gutierrez said.

Seguin ISD has long used the traditional calendar model, but it isn’t working anymore, as educators recognize some students need a little more time, Seguin ISD Chief Communications Officer Sean Hoffmann said.

“I think it is important for our families to understand that the impetus of this calendar is to do the best thing for our students in Seguin ISD,” he said. “We’re going to try to get creative to do anything we can to get our kids up to where they need to be educationally in the classroom. We feel strongly that by including intersession days, which are essentially days where students who need the extra help and support can come to school to get it.”

In initial talks, the district looked at including 10 intersession days — two one-week blocks, Gutierrez said.

After the district opened up a thought exchange allowing the Teacher Communications Council and the Calendar Committee to express their concerns, the discussion shifted from 10 to six intersessional days — either two sessions of three-day blocks and three sessions of two days, Gutierrez said.

The intersession days, if the calendar is approved, are not full-day classes and while they are educational, they’re entertaining, Hoffmann said.

“It’s going to be a lot more open,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot more accommodating and student-focused with the idea of providing that one-on-one instruction and give help to those students who really need it. They’re going to be fun. We’re going to have to market and make these days so students want to come to them and so that parents feel comfortable in knowing their students are going to benefit by going to school on these extra days.”

Trustee Linda Duncan inquired about out-of-school care opportunities for families.

“I know for some families, they might have multiple children, and some of their children might need to go to school for the extra days and some may not. And they (the parents) might work shift work or something and not be able to take off, for the one child and not the other,” she said. “Is there a possibility — I don’t know the JAAM program or something like that — that we can provide an opportunity for other children, if that were to happen in a family?”

Gutierrez said the district is looking to expand the partnership with JAAM. However, families seem to make it work for Saturday school, Gutierrez said.

“We’re bringing these kids on Saturdays and they’ve got siblings and families who work and we’ve been able to have high attendance,” he said. “It’s very rare that when the high school needs kids on a Saturday that they have an unwillingness. We’ve been working through those issues the last several years. And, and we’ve made it work.”

If the six days prove successful, the district may look at continuing the six days or going up to 10 days, Hoffmann said.

“If we can make this successful with six days, we might consider it for 10 in future years,” he said. “But we’re going to have to evaluate that. If it doesn’t work out for us, we maybe look back at going a different way or a different route. At this point, it’s a possibility, but it’s going to have to come after a lot of evaluation and research.”

The intersessional days are to help students succeed in the classroom and on the STAAR test, Gutierrez said.

“It’s not truly about just STAAR,” he said. “It’s about our moral obligation in Seguin ISD to meet the needs of our kids, many of which have challenges. To have this opportunity to do more, I think will be a significant win for our students.”

Only a small portion of Seguin ISD students would attend the intersession days, while the other students would have the days off. Same goes for teachers, Gutierrez said.

Educators are given the option to sign up to teach those days and will be compensated for them, the superintendent said.

The calendar would still follow the teacher contracts of 187 days and those who opt to help the students will get supplemental pay in return.

With the additional days, Hoffmann said there is a misconception that the calendar is year-round. It is far from it, he assured.

“I think people hear there are days built into the school year for remediation and special instruction and automatically assume that our kids will be going to school until the end of June and coming back July 15,” he said. “That is a gross exaggeration and that is certainly not the case.”

The school year would start Aug. 16 and end June 3, Gutierrez said.

Teachers would get an idea of which students may benefit from the extra days in the spring the previous year, but can identify them after the first grading period in the fall.

While an intersessional calendar is on the table, the Teacher Communications Council will still have the ability to view a traditional calendar option as part of the calendar selection process, Hoffmann said.

“We will create a traditional calendar option for our committees to look at and review, in addition to the calendars that have the intersessions built in,” he said. “The good thing about the intersession calendar with six days built in is that it is very close to a traditional calendar. There is not much difference.”

The overall goal is to help students find educational success, Hoffmann said.

“We have a moral and professional obligation to provide the best education possible for our students and right now we feel that this is an avenue that we’re exploring to go down and provide that for our students who need the extra help and support,” he said.

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