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School start time change still debated

• The Dougherty County School Board is scheduled to vote on a change to its transportation plan Monday.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — The lone parent who attended the Dougherty County School System’s second public hearing Wednesday on the proposed change to its schools’ start times brought similar concerns as the parents at Tuesday’s hearing.

DCSS is changing its schools’ start times from 8:30 a.m. for elementary schools and 8:20 for middle and high schools to 8 a.m. for elementary schools and 8:30 a.m. for middle and high schools. Elementary schools would be released at 2:30 p.m. and middle and high schools would be released at 3:40 p.m.

The move is designed to help “safeguard the instructional day,” school system officials have said. The change would alter the times that students arrive home from school because of the hour difference between elementary schools’ and middle and high schools’ release times.

Many parents are concerned that younger children would be left home alone until their older siblings get there.

Leslie Thomas, who has two children in the school system, pointed out that some parents schedule their work day to pick up their children. She criticized school system officials for not having the plan spelled out completely before presenting it for approval.

“To say ‘We don’t really have that worked out, that’s logistics’ — that’s not an answer,” she said after the hearing.

School System Superintendent Sally Whatley said the system was still working out kinks in the new start times, calling it a “work in progress.” DCSS spokesman R.D. Harter said the immediate goal is to get the school board’s approval of the two-tiered start times. Details would be hashed out later, he said.

To help with the timing issues, school officials are working to modify the system’s extended day program to allow elementary students to stay for an extra hour after the regular school day.

Whatley emphasized that the responsibility would rest with the parent to work out any conflicts with district coordinators.

Mechanical issues that frequently cause school buses to arrive late at school in winter, despite being “serviced regularly,” prompted school system officials to push a new transportation system.

Changing the start times will allow for only a portion of the system’s bus fleet to operate at any given time, freeing up other buses to be used as backup.

Under the proposed system, several hubs currently used by the transportation system would be eliminated, Executive Director Finance & Accounting Robert Lloyd said. The new system would be organized into districts by DCSS’ four high schools, and will bus students by age groups, he said.

Most of the bus routes also would take less time to cover, Lloyd said, citing the bus route from Putney to Robert A. Cross Middle Magnet School, which would be reduced from about two hours to just more than one hour under the proposed changes.

Harter said the school system did not expect any additional costs to implement or operate the new transportation system. The board is expected to vote on the matter at its regular meeting on Monday.

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