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Back-to-school: Liberty Hill ISD welcomes students
For the first time Liberty Hill ISD will be welcoming over 10,000 students this school year. Jessica Rivera has more.
LIBERTY HILL, Texas - Thousands of Central Texas students are getting ready to return to school this fall and Liberty Hill ISD students are some of the first to get back into the classroom.
The backstory:
For the first time, Liberty Hill ISD will be welcoming over 10,000 students this school year.
"We're very excited for the first day of school," says Liberty Hill ISD interim superintendent Travis Motal.
And for Panther families, this school year will be different as Liberty Hill ISD is making some changes to the academic calendar.
By the numbers:
"In the spring of 2025, the board approved an innovative calendar for the 25-26 school year. There are some weeks during the school year where students will attend for four days of school and staff will show up for five days," says Motal.
The district hopes this calendar will help cut costs in overtime pay for hourly employees and reduce the amount of money spent on substitutes.
"We had to cut roughly $6.3 million from our budget going into this school year, which is also about 70 positions. Also increasing our class size to absorb some of the cost with the budget cuts," says Motal.
The district believes that the Fridays teachers will be on campus will help give them the support they need in the classrooms.
"The way we could provide more support would be to give them some additional time to plan and get ready for the week when the students are here," says Motal.
And for the Liberty Hill ISD families in need of childcare, there will be assistance on the days there's no class.
"Within the school we have a school based what we call Panther Care. There are some limited spots for parents to sign up for that. That is primarily for our staff, but there are some spots for parents. We've also partnered with the YMCA, which provides after school care throughout our district for the last several years, and they're offering a very discounted rate for parents on Friday," says Motal.
The Texas Education Agency requires 75,600 minutes a school year. The district says the new calendar will allow them to follow TEA guidelines without extending the school year just by adding ten additional minutes each day.
August will be a traditional 5-day school week and the district will transition to a 4-day school week mid-September.
What you can do:
For a look at the innovative calendar, you can click here for the 2025-2026 academic calendar.
The Source: Information from interview with Liberty Hill ISD Interim Superintendent Travis Motal and reporting by Jessica Rivera.