Is There School on Election Day? Dallas ISD Students Are Off Tuesday — and the Answer Varies Across Dallas–Fort Worth
"Is there school on election day" is the No. 2 search in America this afternoon. In Dallas the answer is no — students are off while their campuses serve as polling places — but families in Fort Worth are looking at a different calendar.
Start with the biggest district in the Metroplex. Dallas ISD campuses will serve as polling locations on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, and students will not report to school, the district says. Teachers will use the day for professional development, the district's administrative offices will remain open, and central staff will work a regular day. Polls at those campuses and everywhere else in Texas run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the district points families looking for a polling location to votetexas.gov.
The same answer holds in two neighboring districts whose campuses are also voting sites. Richardson ISD says many of its campuses will serve as official polling locations and that Election Day is a student holiday and a staff professional development day. In Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, Riverchase Elementary told its families students will be off both Monday, November 2 and Tuesday, November 3 because the school will serve as a voting center, with staff using the time for professional development and planning and classes resuming Wednesday, November 4.
Fort Worth is the exception families should not assume away. Fort Worth ISD's published 2026-2027 traditional calendar lists its fall district holidays as Labor Day on September 7, Fall Break on October 9, Indigenous Peoples' Day on October 12 and Thanksgiving Break from November 23 to 27 — Election Day does not appear among the district's holidays or student holidays. The practical rule for Tuesday morning is the unglamorous one: the answer is set district by district, so a Dallas–Fort Worth family should check its own district's calendar rather than borrow a neighbor's — and a parent whose child's campus is a polling place should expect voters, not classes, in the building.
