LIBERTY HILL, Texas (KXAN) — Last school year, Liberty Hill Independent School District made the unusual move of teaching students on campus just four days a week, most weeks.
Those Mondays through Thursdays on campus were longer, as the district still needed to meet the 75,600 instructional minutes requirement set by the Texas Education Agency. However, students had most Fridays off.
Teachers who were still required to be there on Fridays, but without students, had an extra day to grade and plan ahead.
After one year under the experimental schedule, LHISD is returning to the traditional five-day school week.
KXAN talked with Superintendent Travis Motal about that decision, the district’s rapid growth, and technology on campus ahead of the 2026-27 school year.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Tom Miller: Last year, your district had students in class four days a week, and this year you’re going back to the more traditional five days a week for students. What did you learn from last year, and why switch back?
Travis Motal: Our initial calendar last year was more innovative than a traditional calendar, mainly due to the budget cuts that we had to do going into last school year. In order to try to give our teachers more time after some of the cuts, we created a calendar that offered more time for them during the school year. Throughout the year, we saw a lot of benefits for our staff and a lot of benefits for our students. But going forward, we thought a more traditional base calendar would support us long-term.
Miller: Were you getting pushback from families about that?
Motal: I would say it was both. We had a lot of families that were in support of the innovative calendar, and some families that had concerns. Same thing when we adopted our calendar this year. I would say it’s really 50-50.
A calendar is one of those things that it’s really hard to make fit everybody’s needs all the time, for every circumstance. So, we try to take as much input as we can, and try to create as much stability as we can because ultimately, what we want is we want to see our students learn and engage and provide as much time for our teachers and staff to be successful.
Miller: In the past, you’ve said you’re expecting enrollment to double by 2034-35. Is that still the projection, and how do you keep up with that kind of growth?
Motal: We finished last year right around 10,500 students, which was the highest number of students Liberty Hill ISD has ever had. Our current projection is that we’ll be around 11,000 this fall. Currently, we’re seeing that trend continue, with more and more students joining Liberty Hill ISD. We’re going to be monitoring that closely to see if we meet that projection.
Miller: There are other districts in our area that are actually closing campuses, but you are opening new ones. Are there growing pains that come with all these new students?
Motal: Definitely. As you’re opening new campuses, you have to redraw attendance boundaries. You have to hire more staff in order to ensure those campuses are adequately staffed and ready to go for students. All of that takes community input and community decisions.
Miller: You mentioned hiring more staff, and that could be a challenge. Are you expecting to be fully staffed when you open? And how do you go about recruiting teachers to join and stay with Liberty Hill?
Motal: Liberty Hill ISD is a great place to work. I think that we’ll be really close to being fully staffed. It’s tough to say we’ll be fully staffed because there are a lot of positions to fill, but right now we’re very confident about where we’re at with staffing. I feel like we have a great plan for the first day of school that we’ll be able to carry out throughout the entire year.
Miller: How many new campuses are you opening?
Motal: We’ll officially be opening two new campuses next year: Lariat Trails Elementary and Legacy Ranch Middle School. Legacy Ranch High School has been open for the last couple of years, and they’ll move into their new building. So, in a sense, it’s three buildings, but two schools.
Miller: Last year, there was a neighboring district that had a bus crash on the very first day of school where students were injured. What can you tell parents about school bus safety? And do they all have three-point harness seat belts?
Motal: We take school safety very seriously, including bus transportation. Currently, all of our buses that are out on routes have the three-point seat belts. Our board has allocated additional funds to purchase additional buses going forward, and so every year we really review that budget to ensure we have as many buses as possible with three-point safety belts.
Miller: Let’s talk about technology. It feels like we are developing rapidly, including with artificial intelligence, which is more and more part of our everyday life. Are you preparing your students to use artificial intelligence, or do you want to keep that out of the classroom?
Motal: I think artificial intelligence, and technology in general, is a tool that students have to be able to use going forward. I think about my life and all the staff that we have. We use technology all the time, so we want to be able to teach our kids how to use it responsibly, in a way that helps their learning get better.
Miller: What about screen time? I know a lot of students are using Chromebooks and other technology to learn in the classroom. Are you leaning more into that, or has there been any sort of recalibration on just how much screen time is too much screen time?
Motal: We’re actually rolling out this year our high-quality instructional framework to really ensure that our teachers have a good sense of planning and organization and how they can work as a team. The real focus is on how we can get kids collaborating, how we can get kids talking, how we can get kids in those collaborative aspects of things, so that they can focus on learning together and being stronger together.
Miller: Does that look like less time on screens, or just different?
Motal: In the end, we want kids to be engaged in learning the best way possible. If we can limit some of the screen time in order to make that happen, that’s great. However, I do understand that technology is a tool kids have to be able to use. What we really want is to find a balance between the two. How we can get kids engaged in learning, but not overdo it on the screen time in order to get there?
Miller: Speaking of screen time and technology, for the first time, cell phones were essentially banned from being used during instructional hours. How did that go for Liberty Hill?
Motal: Overall, it went really well last year. Anytime you implement something new, you go through a couple of speed bumps as you’re learning along the way. Ultimately, we had students and parents who were very supportive and understanding of it. I would say overall we saw fewer problems with cell phones than we had previously seen.
Miller: How strictly was that ban enforced? Were phones taken away if teachers saw them?
Motal: Yeah, that was the law, right? We came in, and we told the kids once instruction started, you had to put the cell phone away. We told our staff to follow up on that. There is kind of a ladder of consequences if you have your phone out. If kids are not following the law or expectations, we would put some consequences in place.
Miller: As you kick off another school year, reflect big picture on some of the opportunities you see for this upcoming year, and also some of the challenges.
Motal: We’re really excited about opening our new campuses. I would say that’s probably top of our list. This year, with Legacy Ranch High School and Liberty Hill High School being in the same school district, they’re going to be competing athletically and academically against each other. So we’re very excited about seeing that healthy competition. It supports both of those communities, but also brings our district together as one Liberty Hill ISD.