School start and end times will be changing next year to make the student transportation process more efficient.
School board members approved a plan to adjust school start and end times, as well as bus routes and drop-off and pickup times, during Thursday's meeting.
Updated schedule
^Allen Elementary^Intermediate^ Northside Elementary^High School^Middle School^Southside Elementary
Current start time^8 a.m.^8 a.m.^8:05 a.m.^8:05 a.m.^8:15 a.m.^8:15 a.m.
Current end time^3:10 p.m.^3:20 p.m.^3:05 p.m.^3:10 p.m.^3:35 p.m.^3:35 p.m.
Next year’s start time^7:50 a.m.^7:50 a.m.^8 a.m.^8:25 a.m.^8:05 a.m.^8:15 a.m.
Next year’s end time^2:55 p.m.^3:05 p.m.^3 p.m.^3:30 p.m.^3:15 p.m.^3:20 p.m.
Under the new plan, start and end times at the district's six buildings will be staggered over a wider period of time. Allen Elementary and the Intermediate School will begin 10 minutes earlier, shifting from the current time of 8 a.m. to 7:50 a.m., while the end times of the schools will shift from 2:55 p.m. to 3:05 p.m. respectively. Meanwhile, the high school will start at 8:25 a.m. instead of 8:05 a.m. and let out later at 3:30 p.m. instead of 3:10 p.m. The other schools will fall somewhere in between.
In addition, instead of the current system of running several shuttle buses from the intermediate school to the high school, all the buses will make their last stop at the high school after dropping children off at Southside Elementary.
Assistant superintendent Jody Wiggins explained that the new schedule was designed to solve some issues with the current plan. School officials had four goals when creating the new schedule, including decreasing the amount of time the youngest riders spend on the bus, especially stopped in a parking lot; decreasing the length of the school day at buildings where staff have to work beyond their contracted day to supervise pick-up and drop-offs; eliminate discipline issues associated with the high school shuttles; and providing the high school with a later start time to allow for a full zero hour.
One problem the transportation department faces is that four school buildings started within five minutes of each other, Wiggins said. Logistically, it would make sense to stagger the building start times so that buses could make a stop at each building, but the district faces several challenges that make a simple rotation between buildings impossible. For example, the roads around Northside Elementary would make it very difficult for all the district's buses to stop at the school, so the district has two kindergarten shuttle buses that transfer the youngest students from the Intermediate School to Northside Elementary.
In addition to the challenges the transportation department faces with the six main buildings, the district must also plan routes for the special needs buses and routes that include Main Street Academy, the district's alternative school.
Wiggins said he reviewed the new plan with each building principal individually and then again with the principals as a group. Under the new plan, the youngest students will still be spending quite a bit of time on the bus, but they will spend less time sitting on the bus while it is parked in a parking lot, which gets hot during warm weather, Wiggins said.
"I think the new schedule makes us more efficient," he said.
"I doubt if J.B. Hunt or UPS or FedEx has any more complicated logistics than our transportation department," said school board member Brent Butler.
"I will say our transportation department (staff members) are logistics masters," Wiggins said. "They did a master job of putting this plan together and addressing all our concerns to some degree."
General News on 03/12/2017