http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100729/NEWS02/707299939/1003/NEWS02
Published July 29, 2010 in the Rutland Herald
Springfield schools adopt new busing schedule and starting times
By Susan Smallheer
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Kindergartners can sleep in this school year in Springfield.
The Springfield School Board has adopted a new bus schedule for the coming year, a two-tiered transportation plan that will separate the older students from the younger ones, said Superintendent Frank Perotti, with the older students heading to school first.
Perotti said that the plan will mean earlier pickup times for students in grades six through 12, and later pickup times for the two elementary schools, Elm Hill and Union Street. He said the system was very similar to the two-tiered system the district had three years ago.
He said the new schedule would benefit the middle school students at Riverside Middle School in particular, leaving enough time at the end of the day for extracurricular activities such as sports, as well as giving the staff time to coach such activities.
He said the School Board adopted the new schedule after consulting with parents and teachers. Perotti said that parents in particular were worried about exposing their young children to the older high school students.
Perotti said that Springfield High School and Riverside Middle School will get out between 2:30 p.m. and 2:35 p.m., and that school will start around 7:45 a.m., with drop-off at the school at around 7:30 a.m. He said the exact times are still being worked out.
The younger students in grades K-5 will start about an hour later, he said, between 8:30 and 9 a.m., with the superintendent saying that the elementary schedule was still being studied. He said that the elementary students would be dismissed at 3:30 p.m.
The change was made easier since Park Street School is now closed, Perotti said.
The plan will neither save nor cost more money, the superintendent said. While a one-tier bus system would have been cheaper, the school would have needed to have para-educators on board the buses to ensure that the older students didn’t harass the younger students.
“We were able to redeploy in a two-tier system,” he said.
A single-tier system uses fewer buses, he said. “But we were going to have to add aides to ride the buses,” he said.
He said the School Board hopes the new system will encourage parents to have their children ride the bus in an effort to cut down on the traffic to both of the newly rebuilt elementary schools, Elm Hill and Union Street. Reducing traffic is also a condition of the school district’s Act 250 state land-use permit, he said.
There are 600 children in grades kindergarten to five, he said, with another 300 at Riverside and 500 at the high school.
“The middle school has very good ridership,” Perotti said. The high school much less so, as students try to balance a schedule of sports, jobs, after school activities, with many students or their siblings having cars.
The school district’s transportation contract is with First Student, and costs the $387,000 a year. By comparison, he said, the city of Rutland has no transportation costs since students who don’t walk or aren’t driven to school can use public transportation, Perotti said.
Perotti said that transportation costs are a big issue for Vermont’s rural schools, and state aid to education doesn’t take that into consideration.
He said Springfield was “in between” having rural districts and a large population of students in the village area. “We have eight routes on the back roads,” he said, noting some of the state’s most rural schools have to bus every student.
Perotti said under the “Challenges for Change” all school districts will see their state revenue cut by 2 percent, which for Springfield means a cut of between $400,000 and $500,000. The final figures are expected to be released by the state next week, he said.
The pending cuts are an effort to make state schools cut their class size, Perotti said, noting the cuts represent $23.2 million statewide.
But he said those cuts only represent about half the revenue cuts the local school district faces, he said.
“Springfield could easily have $800,000 to $1 million in lost revenue,” he said.
Springfield schools adopt new busing schedule and starting times
By Susan Smallheer
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Kindergartners can sleep in this school year in Springfield.
The Springfield School Board has adopted a new bus schedule for the coming year, a two-tiered transportation plan that will separate the older students from the younger ones, said Superintendent Frank Perotti, with the older students heading to school first.
Perotti said that the plan will mean earlier pickup times for students in grades six through 12, and later pickup times for the two elementary schools, Elm Hill and Union Street. He said the system was very similar to the two-tiered system the district had three years ago.
He said the new schedule would benefit the middle school students at Riverside Middle School in particular, leaving enough time at the end of the day for extracurricular activities such as sports, as well as giving the staff time to coach such activities.
He said the School Board adopted the new schedule after consulting with parents and teachers. Perotti said that parents in particular were worried about exposing their young children to the older high school students.
Perotti said that Springfield High School and Riverside Middle School will get out between 2:30 p.m. and 2:35 p.m., and that school will start around 7:45 a.m., with drop-off at the school at around 7:30 a.m. He said the exact times are still being worked out.
The younger students in grades K-5 will start about an hour later, he said, between 8:30 and 9 a.m., with the superintendent saying that the elementary schedule was still being studied. He said that the elementary students would be dismissed at 3:30 p.m.
The change was made easier since Park Street School is now closed, Perotti said.
The plan will neither save nor cost more money, the superintendent said. While a one-tier bus system would have been cheaper, the school would have needed to have para-educators on board the buses to ensure that the older students didn’t harass the younger students.
“We were able to redeploy in a two-tier system,” he said.
A single-tier system uses fewer buses, he said. “But we were going to have to add aides to ride the buses,” he said.
He said the School Board hopes the new system will encourage parents to have their children ride the bus in an effort to cut down on the traffic to both of the newly rebuilt elementary schools, Elm Hill and Union Street. Reducing traffic is also a condition of the school district’s Act 250 state land-use permit, he said.
There are 600 children in grades kindergarten to five, he said, with another 300 at Riverside and 500 at the high school.
“The middle school has very good ridership,” Perotti said. The high school much less so, as students try to balance a schedule of sports, jobs, after school activities, with many students or their siblings having cars.
The school district’s transportation contract is with First Student, and costs the $387,000 a year. By comparison, he said, the city of Rutland has no transportation costs since students who don’t walk or aren’t driven to school can use public transportation, Perotti said.
Perotti said that transportation costs are a big issue for Vermont’s rural schools, and state aid to education doesn’t take that into consideration.
He said Springfield was “in between” having rural districts and a large population of students in the village area. “We have eight routes on the back roads,” he said, noting some of the state’s most rural schools have to bus every student.
Perotti said under the “Challenges for Change” all school districts will see their state revenue cut by 2 percent, which for Springfield means a cut of between $400,000 and $500,000. The final figures are expected to be released by the state next week, he said.
The pending cuts are an effort to make state schools cut their class size, Perotti said, noting the cuts represent $23.2 million statewide.
But he said those cuts only represent about half the revenue cuts the local school district faces, he said.
“Springfield could easily have $800,000 to $1 million in lost revenue,” he said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Please refrain from posting critical comments in a way that is rude, demeaning or threatening. And try to think of something constructive to include in your remarks. We reserve the right to remove any offensive or off-topic comments.