Breckenridge Texan

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

The Breckenridge Independent School District Board of Trustees met last week and approved the 2023-24 academic calendar featuring the four-day school week they approved in January.

BISD 2023-24 Calendar

According to the calendar, students will start to school on Aug. 8 with staff starting a week earlier, and graduation is scheduled for May 24, 2024. The first three weeks will be five-day weeks with students and staff attending the Fridays of Aug. 11, 18 and 25. Sept. 1 will be the first Friday off for the students with the staff scheduled for a staff development day. After that, each month will feature all Fridays off for students and most Fridays off for staff. Each month, the staff will have at least one workshop, staff development or accelerated instruction day. On the accelerated instruction day, some students may also need to attend to received additional academic preparation.

“When we decided to move to the four-day week, you know, I really thought putting together a calendar would be pretty easy,” BISD Superintendent Bryan Allen said. “But, hey, I’ve had more versions of this calendar than I’ve ever had on a five-day week.”

The 2023-24 calendar includes a full week off for Thanksgiving and two weeks for the Christmas Break, as well as a week off in March for Spring Break. The calendar shows one additional Monday holiday, Labor Day on Sept. 4. However, the other Monday holidays that the students had off this school year — such as Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day — are not on the calendar.

The daily schedules for each campus haven’t been determined yet, Allen said, but the elementary schools will likely start at 7:50 or 7:55 a.m. each day and wrap up  at 3:55 or 4 p.m. The high school students will have slightly longer days, from about 7:45 a.m. to 4:15  p.m., he said.

“This gives us a total of 76,305 minutes, which is a little bit over the required 75,600 minutes,” Allen explained. “It ends up being about 1.6 days in the bank. We do have two bad weather days built in there. So essentially, we have nearly four days of bad weather before we would have to … come to work any additional Fridays to make up that time.”

Allen said the calendar committee, which included Carrol Kanady, Nic McClymond and Paul Lippe, approved the calendar at a committee meeting on March 1.

At their regular meeting on March 9, the school board unanimously approved the proposed calendar. Click here to download a PDF of the calendar.

Other business

Also during the March 9 meeting, the school board received a report from financial adviser John Blackburn with Live Oak Public Finance; honored the students and teacher of the month and the bus driver of the year; and approved the purchase of air-purifying equipment from GermBlast Indoor Air Quality. They also approved an order declaring as elected the unopposed candidates for Place 6 and Place 7 on the Board of Trustees — Nic McClymond and Chad Townson, respectively — and canceling the Board of Trustees Election scheduled for May 6.

Additionally, the board heard reports from the Breckenridge High School Audio/Video/Live Streaming Program, which operates the new scoreboard at Buckaroo Stadium; the BHS Agriculture Program; the BHS Theater department; and the BHS athletics department.

Breckenridge High School theater teacher Tucker Young gives a department report to the school board. The BHS One-Act Play team has advanced in the first three rounds of the UIL competition and will go to the Area contest on April 1. Click here to read more about their production. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Cali Griffin and Lynzi Poindexter, with the BHS Audio/Video/Live Streaming team, explained to the school board what the team does each week at football games and other events. Some of their duties as controllers include running the switcher, the jumbotron controller and the instant replay. They work with teachers Calvin Best and Trey Moore, as well as several other students, including Chris Tharpe, Angel Hernandez, Riyaj Neupane and Braye Cantrell. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

BHS Ag teacher Austin Hanna gives a report to board member Roy Russell and the rest of the school board. The ag department is planning the annual plant sale for April 14. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Cutline, top photo: BISD Superintendent Bryan Allen, far left, explains the proposed 2023-24 academic calendar to the school board members. After his presentation, the school board voted unanimously to approve the schedule. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)