The school’s academic achievement increased as well, eliminating achievement gaps between students of various backgrounds.

“We’re the only school in the entire district that doesn’t have an achievement gap,” Ernster said, referring to the national trend which shows white students outperforming students of color in academic achievement.

“Our black population is outperforming the other subgroups,” he said.

Longfellow has, for the most part, made Adequate Yearly Progress on state comprehensive testing under No Child Left Behind policies every year. However, its Hispanic student population failed to make AYP in reading for the past two years, which means the school is currently making a site plan dealing with how it’ll improve reading curriculum overall and specifically geared towards Hispanic students. This is in contrast to Sumner, which, while making overall AYP standards in Math last year, has failed to keep up with increasingly difficult AYP goals in recent years.

Yet an alternative calendar isn’t a catch-all solution, according to Ernster.

“You can’t say that the 45-15 calendar is going to be the salvation of anything,” he said. “But it’s going to be an opportunity.”

Austin Public School officials are looking to present research and results found at schools like Longfellow to the school board. Berger will be giving a presentation to the board during the Nov. 29 special session, where she’ll detail what steps the school would have to take in order to make the switch. Sumner will hold meetings in January to receive parent feedback on the idea.

Based on more research and community feedback, district officials will then decide whether to make a proposal to the school board to switch Sumner’s calendar to a continuous schedule. The school board will then decide Sumner’s schedule when it approves all district school calendars in the spring, a process the board goes through every two years.

District officials may take a little flak for their decision, if the experiences Ernster had during Longfellow’s switch shows anything. According to Ernster, most people were fine with the change, while some didn’t care either way. A small but vocal minority vehemently opposed the calendar switch.

“Some people just don’t want this,” he said. “Because you’re going to get down-trodden, you’re going to get beaten up when you propose something like this. But if you really want to do what’s right for the kids, then you’re going to take the heat.”

That’s what Berger plans to do, as she’s seen evidence that Sumner students forget lessons during long summer breaks. She and other district officials also wants to be realistic about the opportunities and means Sumner students with free and reduced lunches have.

“For those students, they don’t have a lot of traveling opportunities,” Berger said. “If we can support them and help them prepare better for their futures, that’s the picture we see at Sumner.”