The Texas Education Administration offered affected school districts waivers for the missing days citing the Governor’s disaster declaration. This year the district had an unplanned break directly following the first week of school. The destructive and unexpected nature of hurricane Harvey made many parents and students wonder whether or not the 2017-2018 school year would be extended to account for the days of instruction missed during the hurricane.  

“The effects of Hurricane Harvey continue to be felt in a large portion of the state, impacting a great number of our school districts…” Commissioner of Education Mike Morath said. “For some, this interruption has come at the very beginning of their school year. While in other districts, the school year was already underway.”

School was already underway in district.Despite the disruption some teachers do not see the break as a negative event for the instruction year.

“Was it an inconvenience to miss six days of school? Absolutely,” Teacher Ryan Hennessy said. “But inevitably I’ll get covered the things that I need to get covered.”

Some teachers even saw the destruction and it’s immediate volunteer effort by students as a positive experience for their students.

“I think that for the most part I saw a lot students doing a lot of things in the community to make good use of their time. Was the time spent doing things that were academic? Maybe not. But I think that the lessons they learned as a result of being off were even greater than academic lessons they could have learned. They learned what it meant to pull together as a community, they learned what the Klein five values are that we talked about right before this tragic event occurred,” Mr. Hennessy said.

Students who missed the six instruction days see the break in much the same way.

“I enjoyed the break but am ready to start the year,” Senior Max Houser said “The time off was nice, but I’m trying to graduate.”