Aliyya Swaby Photo
De La Paz.
Teachers and parents pushed back against a cost-saving transportation measure that could delay some schools’ already late start times by 20 minutes.
District Chief Financial Officer Victor De La Paz pitched the measure Monday night as part of the next fiscal year’s proposed school budget, which includes a $5 million proposed increase from the city. The changes in transportation would save the district about $1.5 million, a large chunk of $4 million in overall potential savings, according to De La Paz.
Click here to read the budget presentation.
The matter was debated Monday night at a public hearing at the latest Board of Education meeting, at L.W. Beecher School.
New Haven schools are divided into bus-service tiers depending on their start time. Tier I starts the earliest, at around 7:30 a.m. Tier III starts the latest, at around 9:15 a.m. De La Paz’s plan would push Tier III schools 20 minutes later, to begin at 9:35 a.m. instead.
The Tier III schools affected are primarily magnet schools: Barnard, Beecher, Brennan/Rogers, Conte/West, Davis, Hill Central, Jepson, Betsy/Ross, King/Robinson, West Rock, Ross/Woodward, Mauro-Sheridan and Polly McCabe.
Currently, none of the Tier I buses are used to service Tier III school, because of a “20 minute squeeze,” De La Paz said. Instead, the district is paying for access to a new set of buses for Tier III schools. Pushing the last starting time later would save money by using the same buses from Tier I.
Gallagher.
Mauro-Sheridan visual arts teacher Melody Gallagher said she worries the day’s later start and end time will prevent her from getting to professional development meetings, keep kids from their after-school activities and prove difficult for parents who begin work before 9:30.
Teachers might be absent more often, she said, and parents might not send their children to the magnet schools, sapping them of diversity.
Administrators union President Cheryl Brown expressed “grave concerns” about the later start time. Few jobs allow parents to arrive after 10 a.m., which may force them to pay for before- and after-school child care. The buses leaving at 4 p.m. will be stuck in rush hour traffic, getting kids home much later, especially outside of the district.
Brown.
“Will the Board of Ed meetings be pushed back to Tier III so teachers can come?” she asked. Teachers and support staff may need to seek childcare if coming home later than usual.
And teachers may take half-days to run errands they cannot run during the shifted school day, Brown said.
Mauro-Sheridan parent Gary Highsmith (a former Beecher principal) said he already sees parents lined up to get their children dropped off before the current late start time, so they can get to work. He asked board members to consider the cost versus the value of the proposal, with the latter taking into account “how it impacts all parents that can’t set their own schedules.”
De La Paz said there are still questions to be answered about this plan, but he called it one way to save a significant amount of money in the budget.
“I’m not asking staff to work longer hours,” just different hours, he told the Independent after the meeting.
De La Paz said he has also considered pushing Tier I and II schools to start 20 minutes earlier. But it would make students wake up in the dark during Daylight Saving Time and affect a larger batch of schools, he said.