Houston-area school administrators considering plans for 2020-21 school year

Classes in early August, longer school days and other ideas are being tossed around by area educators grappling with how to make up for the loss of a large chunk of the 2019-20 school year, a Houston-based newspaper recently reported.

"They're going to have so much work to make up that I don't know how they’re going to do it," Angie Tyler, grandmother of an Aldine Independent School District high school junior, told the Houston Chronicle. "She's so used to having her teacher on hand, teaching her math or physics she doesn't get. Is she going to get to learn what she's missed?"

When students who return to the classroom, they will be back in school following the longest closure in living memory. But it is still to be determined when in-person learning will resume. 

On April 17, Gov. Greg Abbott, who previously said K-12 schools and high education institutions would remain closed until May 4, said public schools must remain closed for the remainder of the school year.

For the time being, area students are making do with distance learning and other forms of technologically-based instruction.

Though the future of Texas schools and those across the nation and around the world remains in doubt, Houston-area school administrators have started to map out contingency plans for the 2020-21 school year, according to the Houston Chronicle.

"We have to look ahead," Houston Independent School District Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan told the Houston Chronicle. "We’re looking at instructional time as it relates to programming in the summer, possibly an extended calendar, maybe an extended school day."

The region's education leaders have been discussing more classroom time and addition mental health support for vulnerable students.  Allowing more students to attend summer school, which usually is an option for students in danger of failing, might be an option in Houston Independent School District.

Other ideas under consideration are longer school days, beginning the school year in August and for students to attend classes in August to catch up with missed instruction time then start their new grade-level classes after Labor Day.