With the new start times, a third of Rochester elementary school students rely on private transportation.

Nov. 30—ROCHESTER — After years of adjustments to find the best time for students to start their day, Rochester Public Schools has arrived at a solution that, while imperfect, finally appears to be a step in the right direction.

The county went into effect with new calling hours this fall. It was the culmination of a years-long process to try to agree on preferred schedules for both elementary and secondary schools while leaving enough wiggle room for the buses that must transport both groups of students.

“Rochester Public Schools has a long history of efforts to ensure proper start times from both an educational, operational and financial standpoint,” said Superintendent Kent Pekel. “We think we’ve made a huge step forward.”

This year, elementary school students start their day at 7:55 a.m., middle school students start at 8:35 a.m., and high school students start at 8:50 a.m. (previously, middle and high schools started at 8:10 a.m. and elementary schools started at 8:10 a.m. at 8:50 am). at 9:25 am)

The process of going from before to after was no small feat. While the issue ostensibly revolved around what time schools start their day, it particularly hinged on the district’s ability to reorganize its transportation system and even rewrite rules regarding which schools families are allowed to attend.

Of the approximately 17,500 students enrolled in Rochester Public Schools, more than 10,000 ride the bus. Thus, twice a day, more than 120 buses criss-cross the 218-square-mile area, transporting students to and from school. Before the new routes took effect, the school bus driver fleet drove nearly 7,000 miles per day, amounting to 1.2 million miles per year.

It was a puzzle comparable to a Rubik’s cube.

That meant that bus routes had to be reconfigured to set new start times — and then reconfigured again as the district faced uncertainty about whether schools would be closed due to financial shortfalls. Mayo Clinic’s $10 million contribution allowed the county to avoid that fate.

In addition to having the newest start times, this was also the first year that families did not need an exemption to enroll their elementary school students in whichever school they wanted instead of attending the school associated with their address. If the school had space available and the family was willing to move their student, they could enroll anywhere.

The district called the change a “change in attendance parameters.” However, since district leaders were unsure how many families would take advantage of this option, it added another layer of complexity to route planning.

“You need to build the basics of a route and then time it to see if it will actually work,” Jeffrey Cappers, RPS transportation manager, said of scheduling bus routes. “The software does a lot of things, but it’s still quite a big process.”

Balancing the enrollment of elementary school students into the school at one time and secondary school students at other times was complicated by the presence of all-district schools, that is, schools that have alternative functions and draw students from across the district rather than from a specific attendance group. border.

These include a Spanish immersion program currently based at Riverside Central Elementary School; Lincoln K-8 on Highway 14, the county’s only integrated elementary and middle school; Longfellow Elementary School, which operates on an alternative calendar; Franklin Montessori; and Washington Elementary School, which uses a “core knowledge sequence” curriculum.

Previously, the district transported students to district-wide schools from anywhere in the county. as a result, some students take multiple buses a day to get from, for example, Oronoco to Franklin Montessori in south Rochester.

To implement the new start times, the district had to reconsider the extent to which it could transport students to district-wide schools from anywhere in the Rochester Public Schools catchment area.

Unlike before, the district now has set boundaries for each school in the district. And they transported students from this designated area to the DWO school. If a family wanted to attend a DWO school, they could drive their student to a specific location at a designated location, and the student would have to take a bus the rest of the way.

So how have families responded to these changes made by RPS in the name of new start times? How many of them decided to attend a school in the city other than the one listed at their address? Has the current limited transportation to district schools affected enrollment?

According to the RPS, 1,485 elementary school students are “self-transported” to the district school. In addition, 948 primary school students attend non-DWO schools using their own transport.

This means that a third of elementary school students in Rochester Public Schools rely on their own transportation rather than riding the bus to school. During a review of the changes at the November school board meeting, the district did not include information on how these numbers differed from before RPS implemented the attendance realignment.

Families experienced a bit of trauma heading into this year as the county tried to find the best solution. In January 2021, RPS announced that middle and high school students would begin at 8:20 a.m. and elementary students at 9:35 a.m.

This led to significant dissatisfaction among the city’s elementary schools, with 97% of elementary school staff disapproving of the schedule.

Later, in May 2022, the district adjusted the start time by just 10 minutes to move the ball at least a little in the right direction.

The school board first approved the current start dates for summer 2023, more than a year before they went into effect at the start of the 2024-25 year.

Longfellow Elementary parent Chrissy Misso said she appreciates the fact that students now have extra time for extracurricular activities before dinner.

“As a piano/violin/ukulele teacher, I appreciate that my students can concentrate more because they are not distracted at the end of class,” she wrote. “I can also finish my work earlier in the evening, which is also good for my sleep!”

While RPS appears to have finally settled on a general model it can adhere to, it has its challenges for both parents and district staff.

Part of the challenge for families is caring for children between the end of school and when parents return home. To provide a buffer system, the district increased the number of child care slots for school-age children by more than 300.

But this did not solve the problem completely. Longfellow Elementary parent Emily Gillaspey Blaine said that while she thought the change in school start times was overall a “good move,” it meant their family lost access to the bus and was forced to use after-school care three days a week.

“It’s not necessarily ideal financially, but our daughter loves it!!” Gillaspey Blaine wrote about the changes.

The changes also mean the district has a tighter window of opportunity to get students where they need to be. Instead of a 30-minute difference between start and finish times for middle and high school students, there is now a 15-minute difference. This suggests that there may be further changes.

“We are working on the issues that have been identified,” Pekel said. “Personally, I don’t think we’ve found the ideal transportation structure for Rochester.”