Education
BY DANIEL SCHWALM, BROOKE SJOBERG & CHLOE YOUNG
Liberty Hill ISD moves back to 5-day calendar Liberty Hill ISD students will attend school for ve days a week for a majority of next school year, with the board of trustees approving the academic calendar for the 2026-27 school year March 9. In a nutshell During the current 2025-26 school year, the district adopted a hybrid calendar with mostly four-day school weeks in which Fridays served as teacher work days. District ocials said the hybrid calendar was meant to better support sta members amid bud- get cuts and larger class sizes. The district made $8 million in budget cuts over the last two scal years, including cutting nearly 80 positions, and realized a $2 million budget decit in FY 2024-25. In January, LHISD was required to add some Fridays back after the Texas Education Agency denied the district’s sta development waiver.
ACC integrates AI in higher education Austin Community College announced a new partnership with the Round Rock-based Trellis Foundation to create an articial intelligence-driven system connecting students to support services, personalizing interventions and preparing students for a more prominent AI economy. ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said this initiative will “lean in” to the AI-driven changes in the economy, seeking to meet the moment similar to that of previous large- scale changes such as the Industrial Revolu- tion or the introduction of computers. The platform will pull together students’ real-time data, connecting them to advising oces, tutoring, nancial aid, mental health and wraparound services support in a proactive manner, making interventions more eective.
“We can pay [teachers] as much as we want, but again, if they don’t have time
to help meet all the individual needs of the students in the room [and] to help prepare the best lessons ... they’re not going to be successful.” TRAVIS MOTAL, LHISD SUPERINTENDENT
Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, the agency stopped approving sta development waivers for districts with a four-day-school-week calendar, according to TEA information. LHISD ocials had believed the district would still qualify for the TEA waiver as in years past “as district sta works ve days per week opera- tionally,” according to the district’s website. The district received approval for sta development in the 2024-25 school year, during which 59% of school weeks had ve days, LHISD Superintendent Travis Motal said.
LISD early childhood center named after city founder Leander ISD’s early childhood center will be named the Ada Mae Faubion School for Early Childhood. The big picture Ada Mae Faubion was a member of one of the founding families of the Leander and Cedar Park areas and a lifelong educator.
The Ada Mae Faubion School for Early Childhood is scheduled to open this fall. The school will serve 3- and 4-year-old students in prekindergarten and early childhood special education who are currently zoned to Bagdad, Larkspur, North, Plain and Tarvin elementary schools.
The name was approved by the board of trustees March 12. Ocials noted that the building will carry on the legacy of Faubion Elementary School, which will close at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
Soon-to-be-repurposed Faubion Elementary School will now serve as the district’s early childhood center.
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