School time change on NLR board agenda at noon meeting

The North Little Rock School Board will hold a special meeting at noon today to consider a 10-minute change in the start and dismissal times for the district’s elementary schools and a five-minute change for North Little Rock High School.

If the recommendation from Superintendent Bobby Acklin to the School Board is approved, the district’s elementary school start time will be 7:40 a.m., as compared with the current 7:50 a.m. The elementary school dismissal time would be 2:40 p.m. rather than the current 2:50 p.m.

The high school start and dismissal times would be five minutes later. The hours for the high school would become 8:25 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. rather than the current 8:20 a.m. to to 3:35 p.m.

The changes, if approved, would go into effect after the Sept. 2 Labor Day holiday, Acklin said Monday evening.

There are no changes planned for the North Little Rock Middle School start and dismissal times, but the changes at the elementary and high schools are being done in large part to give bus drivers more time in morning traffic to deliver students to the middle school and then pick up high school students, Acklin said.

The district’s school bus transportation system has been reconfigured this year from a two-run system to a three-run system as a way to generate savings and efficiency, as well as cope with a chronic shortage of bus drivers, Acklin said.

As a result, most of the district’s bus drivers now transport elementary pupils to school, then middle school pupils and then do a high school run.

The anticipated time changes for the elementary and high schools are to make that system work better, he said.

If the time changes are enacted at today’s meeting, it will be the second modification in the elementary school schedule since last school year.