Ysleta Independent School District Trustee Chris Hernandez is pushing his colleagues to reshuffle an existing staff development day onto dates that reliably see empty desks: the Monday after the Super Bowl and the days right after Halloween and Easter. He argues those chronically low-turnout days rattle classrooms and quietly drain revenue tied to daily attendance. The Ysleta ISD board is set to take up the proposal at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Hernandez has been pointing to district data that show attendance slipped from 94.19% to 91.77% on the day after the Super Bowl. He also told reporters that more than 220 teachers called out that same Monday last year, triggering over $23,000 in substitute pay. The trustee says the combination of sagging average daily attendance and a surge in teacher absences costs the district “tens of thousands of dollars” every time it happens. According to KFOX-TV, Hernandez argues the hit comes both from lost funding tied to student attendance and the extra money spent on subs.
Instead of adding more instructional days to the calendar, Hernandez wants to move one of the district’s already scheduled professional development days, when students are off campus anyway, onto those problem dates. The idea, he says, is to keep instructional minutes intact while sidestepping the worst of the attendance drop. He told the El Paso Herald Post that “moving a day we already have” would not cut into instruction and that teachers should have a say in any calendar change. Hernandez has also called for broader community feedback and says he has already heard support from some parents and staff.
The Ysleta ISD school board is scheduled to decide on the proposal at its Dec. 10 meeting, according to KFOX-TV. The station reported that it contacted district officials for comment but did not receive a response in time for its story. Hernandez maintains that shifting an existing professional development day would keep classroom time whole while helping the district avoid what he sees as preventable financial losses.
The timing of the proposal is no accident. Ysleta ISD is already wrestling with budget strain after adopting a $420.2 million budget in June that includes an approximately $22.2 million deficit and uses buyouts and other incentives to reduce personnel costs. As KVIA reported, district leaders have been weighing several tactics to close the gap. Public reaction to Hernandez’s calendar idea has been mixed, with some commenters saying the change “actually makes sense” and others pointing out that staff absences often mirror student absences.
