Lampasas ISD students returned to the classroom Wednesday after two days off to start the week. Frozen precipitation kept road conditions unsafe for travel for many.
Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe told the Dispatch Record that LISD will not have to use any of the district’s make-up days to account for time missed.
For the 2025-2026 school calendar, the district has 77,330 operational minutes built into the 10-month school term. State law requires Texas schools to have a minimum of 75,600 operational minutes to receive full allotment funding from the state.
LISD has additional time built into its schedule to accommodate potential time missed.
“We do build in a couple [bad weather] days just in case there are some issues every year,” Rascoe said. “There are issues with water sometimes, safety. We have had issues with some of our older buses as well. Needless to say, there is a multitude of reasons why we need those days built in.”
The superintendent noted that the LISD Board of Trustees will be voting on Monday to approve next year’s 2026-2027 school year calendar. However, the calendar will have less leeway if school were to be canceled due to weather or other events.
“If it got into this situation and we missed several days, we would probably have to elongate the day or use those bad weather days that are going to be built in,” Rascoe said.
Although Burnet CISD and Copperas Cove ISD opted to cancel school on Wednesday, Lampasas schools proceeded with a normal day and start time. If LISD had canceled school, Rascoe said the district would have been required to make up a halfday. That time could have been made up in small, fiveminute increments across several school days.
Before deciding to go ahead with school on Wednesday, Rascoe said he closely monitored the weather and communicated with the Texas Department of Public Safety, Sheriff David Parker and the district’s transportation department.
“We made the decision based on all of those entities coming together, and it was safe,” Rascoe said. “It is not just one person who makes the decision. Ultimately, it is my call to make, but I base it on all those people coming together and giving me input.”
The only issue that arose during Wednesday morning’s commute was a slick surface in the parking lot at Taylor Creek Elementary School, the superintendent said.
“We de-iced the parking lot, and the water accumulated from the deicing that made it slick,” Rascoe said. “We had some trouble with the buses, but they were able to work it out, and everyone was brought in OK.”
