LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock ISD does not plan on having to use makeup days after cancellations and delays due to winter weather last week.
“So as of right now, unless we have more delays or cancellations, we are good,” Superintendent Dr. Kathy Rollo said.
There is one small change for high schoolers to make sure they get all of their classroom minutes required by the state.
“We did have to cancel our late-start Wednesdays for our high school students for the remainder of the semester, because they were a little bit behind in the minutes because of that late start time,” Rollo said.
Rollo said planning ahead of time for the possibility of winter weather helps keep the district on track. Because extra minutes had been banked into the school calendar, makeup days won’t be necessary.
The state requires 75,600 instructional minutes for the school year. Snow days can throw that off, but Rollo says safety for students and staff is top priority.
When it looks like the roads will be bad, she’s communicating with other Lubbock superintendents, while a team is out actually driving the roads starting at 4:30 a.m.
“So, we try to make our decisions based on what’s going to be safest. But also we know students need to be in school and those gaps are created when we miss school. So, it’s a balancing act,” Rollo said.
The district tries to make those decisions the day before so parents have time to plan for childcare. There’s also more factors at play than just the gradebook.
“One thing that keeps me up at night when we cancel school is will kids have access to food? A lot of our families rely on school for breakfast and lunch, and in some cases even dinner. And so our team made a plan in a moment’s notice to feed kids on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday when we canceled school,” Rollo said.
When it comes to bad weather, Rollo said parents need to look for information coming directly from the district.
“Because there were a lot of people who were posting inaccurate information that was not official information. So always look to our website or any official notification from the district,” Rollo said.
Lubbock ISD is already looking ahead to next year. After more than 1,700 parents and teachers and even some students completed a survey, the school board approved their top choice for the school calendar for 2026-27.
It keeps students finishing the year before Memorial Day, finishing the first semester before Christmas break, and gives them a full week for Thanksgiving and spring break.
It also banks in about 2,100 extra minutes and three bad weather days, just in case the district sees a storm like this one again.
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