Starting in the 2023-24 school year, Harmony Public Schools will have early release every Friday.
Harmony Public Schools said that this is a way to support its team members while also making it a little bit sweeter to work for Harmony Public Schools.
Nicole M. Romanos — Public Relations, Communication & Marketing Coordinator — said that this initiative came from two different ideas.
First, Romanos said some campuses across the state already released students early on Fridays, although it wasn’t universal. Some even had a different early release day earlier in the week, but discussions with parents proved that they preferred Fridays as they better fit their work schedules and other family needs.
Secondly, Romanos said that the move was better to help team members’ mental health needs.
“While all Harmony employees are entitled to paid time off throughout the school year, we also wanted to make sure our employees had appropriate time each week for self-care without feeling the need to take a full day off each time to do so,” she said. “By giving our team members just a little extra time for self-care during the week, we believe we will be supporting a happier and healthier Harmony team.”
Romanos said HPS believes that by providing team members this extra time it will decrease some of the need for team members to take full-day absences, which impacts instruction time for students. Considering the nationwide substitute teacher shortage, they feel this is vital to address.
Early release on Fridays will apply to all 60 Harmony schools across the state next year.
In Laredo, HPS has three campuses: Harmony School of Innovation Laredo (K-5), Harmony Science Academy (grades 6-8) and Harmony School of Excellence (grades 9-12).
Currently, full-time employees leave school at 2:43 p.m. on Fridays. This would change to immediately after student dismissal next year at roughly 1:15 p.m., which may vary due to each local campus’ needs, HPS states.
Romanos said early dismissal for students will not affect the number of learning hours required by the state, since additional minutes are built into the school calendar each year.
“This will not have a significant impact on the length of the school day or year,” she said. “Additional minutes are built into the school calendar each year, so this will not have a significant impact on the length of the school day or year.”
According to Texas Education Agency, House Bill 2610 — passed by the 84th Texas Legislature — strikes language requiring 180 days of instruction and replaces this language with language requiring school districts and charter schools to provide at least 75,600 minutes of instruction, including intermissions and recess.
The agency said that with the passage of HB 2442, in the 85th Texas Legislature, the seven-hour (420 minutes) school day requirement in Texas Education Code §25.082 was repealed which allows school districts to adopt a shortened school day as an update to HB 2610.
All those hourly employees at HPS will have the option to take advantage of the early release Friday schedule, or stay and continue working so that they don’t experience any loss of hours or salary.
Romanos said employees are excited about this new perk of working at Harmony, and Harmony is excited to be able to offer it to them.
“At Harmony Public Schools, we work very hard to be responsive to the needs of our student families and team members,” she said. “Early release Friday is a program that supports both of those groups. Team members get extra time for self care, and families get a schedule that better fits their needs. This is a win-win for our entire Harmony Public Schools community.”