Springdale elementaries start earlier

SPRINGDALE — The School District’s elementary students are arriving for class a bit earlier this year than in past years.

The district added 15 minutes to the elementary school day by moving the start time from 8 a.m. to 7:45 a.m., a change officials hope will provide more time for students and teachers to engage in projects of personal interest, said Maribel Childress, an assistant superintendent overseeing the elementary schools.

Tuesday was the first day of school. Early feedback from parents on the new starting time has been positive, according to Childress.

“One of the principals told me she had multiple parents thanking her as they were going through car rider line this morning saying, you have no idea how awesome it is that I can drop my child off at 7:20. I’m going to be able to make it to work on time this year,” Childress told the School Board at its meeting Tuesday.

Dismissal time remains the same at 3 p.m. The change means Springdale’s 18 elementary schools now get the same amount of class time — seven hours and 15 minutes — as grades six through 12 get.

Elementary schools must spend certain amounts of time on subjects such as reading, writing and math. Administrators wanted students to have more time to devote to projects of their choice and things like tinkering and using maker spaces, Childress said.

They latched onto the discrepancy in time between the elementary school day versus the middle, junior high and high school days. Teacher contracts at all levels are the same in number of days, but elementary students weren’t getting the same amount of instruction, Childress said.

Tacking 15 minutes to the end of the day would have interfered with afternoon bus routes districtwide, but adding that time to the morning was fine because buses already were dropping off elementary kids before 7:45, Childress said.

The change doesn’t affect breakfast service, either. Thirteen of the elementary schools offer breakfast in the classroom. The other five schools were able to open their cafeterias at 7:20 instead of 7:30, Childress said.

“The principals are working really hard to make it a positive transition. Their goal is that people won’t even notice a difference,” she said.

Stephanie Hinsey, assistant principal at Elmdale Elementary School, said there were questions but few complaints from parents about the change.

“We had lots of questions, just calling and asking what time does school start,” Hinsey said. “Any time I would encounter that, I would say, ‘We just love your kids so much, we wanted to spend more time with them.’”

Superintendent Jim Rollins told the board the 2019-20 school year is off to a great start.

District enrollment as of Thursday was 22,225. That number is expected to fluctuate a lot over the next few weeks, but Rollins said ultimately they are expecting 200 to 300 students more than the district enrolled last fall.

“If we do, that will be a good growth year for sure,” he said.

Springdale, the largest school district in Arkansas, had 21,962 students as of Oct. 1, the standard date for reporting district enrollment each year.