Pandemic could stall new school start times

With the 2021-2022 school year starting Wednesday, it remains unclear if school start times will change by the second semester as announced by the Board of Education in January or if the longawaited change will be delayed.

In January, the Board of Education told Superintendent George Arlotto to create a plan to change school start times no later than the second semester of 2021-2022, citing students’ developmental health. Seven members were in favor, with District 3 Member Corine Frank in opposition.

In March, the board approved spending $105,920 to hire Prismatic Services, Inc. to map bus routes for the new start and dismissal times. When the board got an update from Prismatic on June 2, it approved a motion saying that the board would make a decision about the implementation of new start times after its Aug. 18 meeting.

Board President Melissa Ellis said Aug. 18 that said an action item approving the next phase of Prismatic’s work would be placed on a future agenda for a decision to be made.

District 2 Member Robert Silkworth said he supports new start times, but would rather see the new times implemented at the start of the 2022-2023 year given the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic this school year. “I’m excited about it and I’m hoping it’s going to go really go well, but I don’t know what challenges we’re going to face in the fall,” he said.

On Aug. 18, Tatia Prieto of Prismatic Services provided an update on their work, saying they submitted routes for the Southern and Chesapeake clusters to the AACPS transportation department for review and are continuing the mapping grind.

Prieto said their work indicates that high schools will all be able to start around 8:30 a.m., middle schools will start around 9:15 a.m. and the majority of elementary schools will begin classes around 8 a.m. She said to ensure buses aren’t overbooked and to allow 2.5 students per seat at the elementary level and 2 per seat at the secondary level, with one seat free to account for growth, the system would need to add approximately 32 buses.

Through a motion proposed by Vice President Dana Schallheim the board is considering making AACPS a school system in which students would need to opt-in to receive transportation home to help improve efficiency, as there are students to account for who do not use the bus or use it infrequently.

Arlotto said the system transports 62,000 students on a given day. The board asked him to report back to about the possibility of making the change to opt-in during the 2022-2023 by April — irrespective of when start times change.