Seguin ISD includes changes, adds intercession dates in next year’s school calendar

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Cindy Aguirre

(Seguin) — Seguin ISD parents will want to mark their calendars for the 2021-2022 school year.  The Seguin ISD Board of Trustees Tuesday night unanimously approved intercession dates for the coming school year.

Sean Hoffmann, chief communications officer for the Seguin ISD, describes the structure and details of this newly adopted calendar for students in all grade levels.

“Overall, the Seguin ISD instructional calendar for 2021-2022 isn’t a whole lot different than what we’ve been used to traditionally for the last several years. It does have intercession days built in and there are three days in the fall semester and there are three days in the spring. In the fall, we are looking at Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1 and then again in the spring on Feb. 2, 3 and 4. Again, those intercession days are built in for students who need additional intervention and additional supports, so the vast majority of our students and the majority of our staff won’t be in school those days. They will essentially have those days off but there will be that time dedicated for those students who really need time to catch up and need some extra attention in the classroom,” said Hoffmann.

The six additional days, however, aren’t the only additions that Seguin ISD families will notice on the school calendar. Hoffmann says several half days have also been included.

“We have built in five Wednesdays throughout the calendar and those are in Oct., Nov. Feb., March and April and those are half days in which our students will leave and be dismissed at noon. This will give our teaching staff time to either engage in professional learning or just have a work afternoon where they can do grading, where they can call a parent and talk to a parent and have a conference, just creating those opportunities of breaks where our teaching staff can kind of catch a breath and catch up,” said Hoffmann.

Hoffmann adds that the start of the school year will still be in August and holidays will also pretty much remain as they have in years past.

“Again, going back to the concept of the calendar, we start on Monday, Aug. 16. That’s our first day of school. Our students at Ball Pre-K will start a couple of days later on Wednesday, Aug. 18. We do have the traditional Labor Day, Fair Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, MLK – we’ve got all those holidays built in just like we do every year — a week for spring break,” said Hoffmann.

Hoffmann says while it will be an adjustment for many, the district remains confident in the new school calendar and believes it’s a great start to even more changes in the years to come.

“Our last day of school is scheduled for Thursday, June 2. That Friday, June 3 will be a workday for our teachers so again, we’re getting out that first week of June and our last day will be on a Thursday. We will probably have graduation that Friday night. So, we are happy to have this calendar. Again, it’s different. It will be an adjustment for some folks. We realize that. We think easing in with the intercession days – you know ideally and originally; we were thinking that we were going to have two weeks’ worth. That we would have five days in the fall and five days in the spring built in for intercession, but we did take the public comments and the teacher comments into consideration and we think that we created something that will benefit our students and also, taking that input to heart. So, we are going with those six intercession days for this calendar,” said Hoffmann.

The intercession days are expected to run from 8 a.m. to noon and will consist of a camp like setting for struggling students. The additional intervention days will also offer one on one or small group learning for students in all grade levels.

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