GISD adds some Mondays back to add grant funds into classrooms

A handful of Mondays are back in the calendar for Gladewater ISD, part of an exchange that adds state grant funds in exchange for more study time.
District leadership opted for an ‘expanded’ schedule moving forward in order to bump instructional days with students from 154 days last year to 159 in 2026-2027 and, eventually, six more.
“We have three years to do it,” GISD Supt. Rae Ann Patty said. “By the end of the second year, by ’28-29, we have to get to 165.”
It’s a requirement to receive an additional $700,000 injection of state funds to cover key costs in the classroom.
“It’s a state grant,” Patty noted. “When you get these funds it’s usually because you’ve had some academic concerns, and they want you to increase your instructional days serving children.”
For Gladewater ISD, it’s tied to accountability data from 2022 through 2025 – numbers were delayed years due to a state-level lawsuit.
“In August of ’25 we got all three years, and we were held accountable for all three years of our letter grades.”
Prior to the release, GISD’s four-day schedule was adopted and implemented for the 2024-2025 school year. Patty came on board in December ’24.
The new funding deal put the Mondays of Aug. 3, 10 and 17 back on the calendar along with half days Oct. 5 and Feb. 8.
“In the eyes of this, a half day counts as a day of instruction,” Patty said. “It is an optional grant that we applied for… This year we received about $700,000. Next year we’ll get a new allocation, but they haven’t released how much that is yet.
Without the funding, “We wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that we’re able to do right now instructionally.”
The funds cover curriculum costs and supplies as well as four instructional specialists in reading, science, math and social studies.
“It goes straight to the teachers for job-embedded coaching, curriculum and curriculum supplies. It pays for all of that then it pays for all of the curriculum, Kindergarten through eighth grade.”
It’s a way to have the same hands-on experiences, Patty added, without teachers having to cover the difference.
“I am going to write grants so that teachers can have supplies. That’s my wheelhouse, that’s what I like doing,” she said. “I do not like teachers having to come out of their pockets to buy things to use in their classrooms to teach with.
“I want to supply as much as we can so we can have a great setup in the classroom to teach kids and not have to use (the teachers’) own money.”