Katy ISD 2026-27 school calendar: breaks, holidays and key dates

Katy ISD's 2026-27 school year runs from Wednesday, August 12, 2026, to an early-dismissal last day on Wednesday, May 26, 2027, and it includes a brand-new district-wide fall break in October. The rest of the year tracks the pattern local families know: Thanksgiving week off, a winter break from December 21 through January 1, spring break in March, and the usual Texas three-day weekends. The district's Board of Trustees adopted the calendar on January 20, 2026, and the official 2026-27 instructional calendar PDF on katyisd.org is the authoritative copy for any planning. Here are the dates that matter this year.

The 2026-27 calendar at a glance

These are the key dates from the district's adopted calendar, listed by term. All Katy ISD campuses follow the same year, but keep one thing in mind from the start: which campus serves your exact address is a separate, address-level question covered below.

Fall 2026

• First day of school: Wednesday, August 12, 2026.
• Labor Day: Monday, September 7, 2026, no school.
• Campus professional learning days (no students): Friday, September 18 and Friday, October 23, 2026.
• Fall break: Friday, October 9 through Tuesday, October 13, 2026, students and staff off, a new break on this year's calendar.
• Campus professional learning day (no students): Monday, November 2, 2026.
• Thanksgiving break: Monday, November 23 through Friday, November 27, 2026.
• End of fall semester: Friday, December 18, 2026, early dismissal.

Winter break and the start of spring 2027

• Winter break: Monday, December 21, 2026 through Friday, January 1, 2027.
• Campus day, no students: Monday, January 4, 2027.
• Spring semester begins: Tuesday, January 5, 2027, students return.
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Monday, January 18, 2027, no school.
• Campus professional learning day (no students): Friday, February 12, 2027.
• Presidents Day: Monday, February 15, 2027, no school.

Spring and the end of the year

• Spring break: Monday, March 8 through Friday, March 12, 2027.
• Easter and spring holiday block: Friday, March 26 through Monday, March 29, 2027, students and staff off.
• Campus professional learning day (no students): Friday, April 9, 2027.
• Last day of school: Wednesday, May 26, 2027, early dismissal.

What's new this year: a district-wide fall break

The biggest change on the 2026-27 calendar is a full fall break in October, new for this school year. Students are off Friday, October 9 through Tuesday, October 13, which gives families five days around a weekend without impacting the rest of the spring calendar. The Board of Trustees adopted the break when it approved the 2026-27 and 2027-28 instructional calendars together in January 2026, so the same October break is already scheduled for next school year as well (Katy ISD board news, January 2026). For parents planning travel, think of it as a smaller preview of the winter break rhythm, before the semester's final push to December 18.

Winter break: December 21 through January 1

The fall semester ends with an early-dismissal day on Friday, December 18, 2026, and winter break runs Monday, December 21 through Friday, January 1, 2027. Monday, January 4 is a campus day with no students, so plan travel accordingly, and the spring semester begins for students on Tuesday, January 5, 2027. That means families coming back from the holidays have the full week of January 4 for classroom and bus preparation before classes resume.

The spring run: MLK, Presidents Day, spring break and the Easter block

After the January 5 return, the spring semester has an even rhythm: no school Monday, January 18 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day; no school Monday, February 15 for Presidents Day; spring break Monday, March 8 through Friday, March 12; then the Easter and spring holiday block from Friday, March 26 through Monday, March 29, 2027, which covers Good Friday and the Easter weekend plus the Monday after. Campus professional learning days with no students land on Friday, February 12 and Friday, April 9. The year closes with early dismissal on Wednesday, May 26, 2027, so summer 2027 planning hangs on that end date, which the district publishes on its official calendar page.

Bad weather: the calendar already absorbs two missed days

Katy ISD builds its instructional calendar with enough minutes that two bad-weather days, typically the freeze days in January and February, can be absorbed before any makeup day is added to the calendar. What that means in practice: a pair of weather closures this winter will not extend the school year, and makeup days only come into play beyond that. If a freeze hit does add days, the district announces the makeup schedule through the same channels that carry weather closures, so follow the district's official communications rather than a third-party app.

The calendar is district-wide, but your school is address-specific

Every Katy ISD campus runs on this calendar, but "which school does my address feed?" is a completely separate question, and it is the one that trips up families new to the area. No single school serves all of Katy, and a Katy mailing address does not even guarantee Katy ISD: parts of the Katy-address area sit in Lamar CISD (Tamarron, Jordan Ranch and the west side of Cross Creek Ranch), parts of Sunterra are Royal ISD, and pockets near the edges touch Fort Bend ISD and Houston ISD. Attendance is assigned by exact street address, not by community name or ZIP code. The school zoning explainer walks through the address-level verification steps, and the schools guide maps the district boundaries. The same reminder applies to new construction: Katy ISD opened two new elementaries for 2025-26 and has Elementary #49 on Pitts Road scheduled to open in August 2027, which means boundary adjustments ahead; the new schools post covers what that growth means for buyers.

How families use the calendar when timing a move

For parents planning a relocation, the calendar sets two practical deadlines. If you want a child to start the school year with their class, plan to close and move by early August, before the August 12 first day. Mid-year moves work fine, and schools register new families year-round, but the cleanest transition points around a fall or winter break usually make the adjustment easier on kids. Families also use the calendar to test commute and traffic around dismissal times, since Katy-area traffic varies sharply with school hours.

If you are comparing communities, the district's growth is itself a clue to where families are moving in greater Katy: the district said it welcomed nearly 90,000 students for the 2026-27 year, with local news coverage putting first-day attendance between about 90,000 and 94,000 depending on the count date (My Neighborhood News, August 2026), operating roughly 80 campuses. New attendance zones follow new campuses, so the community guides are a good starting point, and the moving to Katy guide covers the geography of school districts, city limits and mailing addresses in full.

Ask Carol: get the school verification and the timing right for your move

The calendar tells you when school is in session; the address tells you which school. Carol Jukes, Broker and Owner of Realty Pros of Texas, verifies the current and projected school assignments for any Katy-area address and can help you time a move so it lands on the school-year transition that works for your family. Call her at (832) 212-2772 or send a note through the contact page, and if you are just starting the search, the buy-in-Katy path walks through the pre-approval, community and school checks step by step.