On August 3rd, the TEA (Texas Education Agency) announced the addition of three amendments to the Round Rock ISD academic calendar. Before the school year starts, the TEA typically sends out an email to address the new additions or changes to the school year’s schedule.
The first amendment relocates Spring Break to March 11 through March 15 to help students attending ACC courses receive their dual credits without having to work during their break.
“I think moving Spring Break to incorporate the ACC dual credit [courses] is very helpful to students taking those courses,” Tyler Galaviz ‘26 said. “It gives students more time to get the tests and things they need prepared.”
The second amendment moves schools’ professional development day from Jan. 2 to Aug. 3 and extends winter break for teachers and staff by one day. The third and final calendar amendment adds an additional five minutes of instruction to the school day to eliminate the need for make-up days in the case of inclement weather conditions causing school to be canceled.
“I think the idea of taking away makeup days is great. It’s good to know that extending school will eliminate the makeup days,” Emma Mendoza ‘26 said.
Among the new stipulations, the bell schedule also caused a drastic change at Westwood by adding a third lunch in the middle of 2nd and 6th block. With such a big change students have an entirely new bell schedule they have to memorize, adding to the skepticism of how the year will go to students across all grades.
“Personally I think it’s just going to add more confusion throughout the school day,” Lyla Caballero ‘26 said. “The split class could be super hard to work around especially if you happen to have major tests or quizzes during that block.”
Though having split lunches may cut down traffic in the hallways during lunch time, students who have the split lunch will lose almost 10 minutes of instructional time due to the split lunch being 36 minutes instead of 30 like the other two lunches.
“Lots of students use lunch as a second flex to get work done or relax as well as socialize and eat food,” Marcus Carson ‘26 said. “I know that we’ll all get used to it eventually but it will be confusing.”
Even though upperclassmen get the benefit of having an extra six minutes of lunch to go off campus, the other students lose valuable time to learn and benefit from their education. Most students have had negative feelings on the new bell schedules saying they believe that “it’s confusing and hard to work around.”
“I mean it’s a benefit for upperclassmen, but what about the rest of us?” Aarav Singh ‘26 said. “I mean, it’s not fair that we lose 10 minutes of instructional time.”
