It usually starts with a note in the school folder. Reminder: no school Friday. Then the math begins — who's off, who can work from the kitchen table, which grandparent owes you a favor, and how many hours of screen time you're willing to live with.
If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. Two working parents, one parent doing the work of two, a job that doesn't care it's a teacher work day — the school calendar wasn't built around any of it.
The gap days nobody plans for
Summer gets all the attention. Parents start booking summer camps in February. But the days that really scramble a working family's week are the scattered ones in the middle of the school year:
- Friday, Oct 9 and Monday, Oct 12 — a four-day weekend for kids in Austin ISD, and most neighboring districts are out on the same days (Eanes, Round Rock, Leander and Lake Travis ISD among them).
- Nov 2–3 — two more AISD student holidays right after Halloween.
- Nov 23–27, AISD Fall Break — the whole week of Thanksgiving, which means three ordinary workdays before the holiday even starts.
- Dec 21 – Jan 4, Winter Break — two full weeks, most of them workdays for everyone who isn't a teacher.
These are the days that eat up PTO, stretch the favors bank, and leave kids bouncing off the walls by lunchtime. They're also the days kids need to move the most.
Every kid plays. Every drill. Every day — including the days school is closed.
What Sportball is doing about it
This fall, Sportball Austin is running school-holiday gap camps on the no-school days that hit working parents hardest. They're full-day drop-off camps, open to every Austin family — your child does not need to be enrolled in a Sportball class or at a partner school.
- Two locations: WAYA (1314 Exposition Blvd, Central/West Austin, ages 3–9) and the St. Francis School gym (300 E Huntland Dr, North/East Austin, ages 4–11).
- 9 AM – 2 PM on most dates (the Oct 9 camp at WAYA runs 9 AM – 1 PM).
- Small groups — capped at 25–30 kids per day, led by trained Sportball coaches, not volunteers.
- Everything provided. Just pack a lunch, a water bottle and sneakers.
What a gap day looks like
A Sportball camp day isn't a gym with a TV in the corner. It's the Sportball method — the same play-based approach behind our weekly classes — stretched into a full day, with kids rotating through sports so nobody gets bored and nobody gets left out.
Warm-ups and skill stations — soccer, basketball, hockey, t-ball and more, rotated so every child tries everything.
Lunch break (packed from home), water, and a breather.
Team games and challenges where every kid plays. No tryouts, no bench, no rankings.
A kid who is actually tired — the good kind — and full of stories about the goal they scored.
Because it's multi-sport, it works for the kid who lives for soccer and the kid who hasn't found their sport yet. That second kid is exactly who we built Sportball for.
This fall's school-holiday camps
Here's every gap-day camp open for registration right now. Spot counts are from our roster as of October 5 — the October dates are filling first.
Planning further ahead? MLK Day (Jan 18), Presidents' Day (Feb 15) and Spring Break (Mar 15–19) camps are already open too — see them on our camps page.
Does my child need to be a Sportball student?
No. Gap camps are open to every Austin-area family, whatever school your child attends.
What should they bring?
A packed lunch, a labeled water bottle, sneakers and play clothes. We provide all the equipment.
What if I need pickup later than 2 PM?
Tell us. Email austin_info@sportball.com — hearing from working parents is exactly how we decide which dates and hours to add next.
My child is 3 — is that too young?
Not at WAYA, where camps welcome ages 3–9. St. Francis camps start at age 4.
Why parents trust Sportball with the days that matter
Sportball has been part of Austin family life since 2004, through our weekly classes, Saturday park programs and on-site programs at partner schools across the metro. In June, Forbes featured Sportball — and named Mica and me, who started out as Sportball coaches before taking over the Austin franchise — in a story about one of youth sports' biggest problems: most kids quit by 13. Our answer has always been the same — keep it fun, keep every kid involved, and build the kind of confidence that makes a child want to keep playing.
A school holiday is a good day to practice that. Your child gets a day of real activity with coaches who know what they're doing. You get a workday back.