If all goes as Sumner Elementary School staff hope, Sumner could get a brand-new schedule next year.

Austin Public School Board members will vote whether to approve an alternate calendar for Sumner Monday. The modified calendar, also called a 45/15 schedule or year-round schedule, would mean Sumner would start school earlier than other district schools and end at the same time as everyone else.

A 45/15 schedule means students would attend school for 45 school days, or about nine weeks, and then go on break for about 15 school days, or about three weeks.

Students would have the same amount of vacation days as other Austin kids including a shorter summer vacation, according to Sumner Principal Sheila Berger.

If passed, Sumner would start in August of this year.

“We have worked to lay out our calendar for board approval, making sure each break works with the traditional calendar,” Berger said.

While the proposal raised many questions when community members first learned about the approach, a majority of Sumner parents left a January information meeting with positive feelings about the calendar, which school officials say will help students retain information, cut down disciplinary actions and offer better remedial help to students, among other things.

Yet parents had several concerns which Sumner has tried to address, chiefly how families would manage the schedules of several siblings in different schools. As a result, Woodson Kindergarten Center staff volunteered to switch up to four classes of students who would attend Sumner in first-grade. In addition, Sumner officials are trying to find funding for extracurricular activities during the intercessions, or three-week breaks.

Parents will have to find their own solutions to some of the changes. Parents of students who enroll in Sumner from outside the school’s busing routes, or Sumner students who enroll in other elementary schools, will have to find their own transportation.

An alternative calendar isn’t guaranteed after board members approve the proposal, as district officials will have to submit an application to the state Department of Education for final approval.

While district officials concede the switch may not immediately affect state comprehensive test scores, they are confident the alternative calendar will help after looking at other alternative calendar schools around the state and country.