Despite state budget cuts reducing the school district budget by $3.2 million, the Cedar Hill Independent School District is expanding its school hours for students by 30 minutes a day.
The schedule change will allow CHISD to provide 11 more days of instructional time to students during the year without adding extra dollars to the budget.
"The district recently achieved Recognized status by the Texas Education Agency. With the state switching from the TAKS to the more stringent STAAR testing system, we want to make sure we don't lose the academic ground we have made in becoming Recognized without the assistance of Texas Projection Measure," said Dr. Homer Carter, Chief Academic Officer.
The new class times for Cedar Hill students are:
Grades K-8 7:40 a.m.-3:20 p.m.
Grades 9-12 7:50 a.m.-3:50 p.m.
Each school has the flexibility to structure the extra time to assist students and meet their needs. High Pointe Elementary will utilize the additional time to provide students with a school-wide tutorial/enrichment time every day. "Due to budget cuts, we will no longer have additional funds to pay staff for this type of program, so this is our plan to compensate for that loss," said Dr. Karen Crow, principal at High Pointe Elementary School. "It actually may prove to be more effective since we will be able to have all of our students involved rather than just those that could stay after school. Oftentimes different ride arrangements or busy family schedules would not allow students to stay after school even though there may have been an academic need."
