RSS Feed
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Local principals support 3-tier plan Gulf Breeze Middle School students will hear their first school bell ring each day at 7:15 a.m. beginning next August, while Gulf Breeze Elementary students will start their school day at 8:15. Gulf Breeze High students won't be expected to arrive for classes until 9:15 each day. The new starting times are part of the three-tier scheduling plan approved by the Santa Rosa County School District last week. The main reason for the three-tier scheduling is to save money on school buses. Staggered start and finish times require fewer buses. With more time between school starting times, many buses can be used for as many as three routes each morning and again each afternoon, resulting in a need for about 50 fewer buses. That adds up to a potential savings of more than $1 million, according to Santa Rosa School District administrators. "Our starting time next year will only be 30 minutes earlier than this year," Gulf Breeze Elementary School principal Karen Murray said. "We have been staggering start times in Gulf Breeze anyway, with the schools here and the buses trying to service each school. So I don't see a big problem for us. We are willing to work with the school board in any way to help with the budget crunch." Oriole Beach Elementary also is making a 35-minute change in next year's schedule. "I have not heard one single negative comment from any staff member or parent about the schedule change next year," Oriole Beach principal Dawn Alt said. "We feel like it is a good move, so cuts might not have to be made in the classroom." There will be a five-minute change in next fall's starting schedule for Woodlawn Beach Middle School. Classes will start at 7:15 a.m. instead of 7:20. But the elementary schools with the biggest shift in schedules in the entire county are Holley-Navarre Intermediate and Holley-Navarre Primary Schools. Those two schools will start classes on the first-tier next fall - or at 7:15 a.m. - instead of this year's start time of 8:45 a.m. That will be a big adjustment for parents and students, as well as staff, with kindergarteners through sixth graders changing even sleep schedules to be up and out much earlier each morning. Holley-Navarre Middle will also have a big shift with its starting time changed to 9:15 a.m. instead of this year's start time of 7:20 a.m. The elementary and middle schools in the north end of the county are mostly starting within 15 minutes of this year's start times, except Sims Middle, which will start one hour, 15 minutes earlier next year at 7:15 a.m. The biggest shift in scheduling will be at the county's four high schools. All high schools will start classes at 9:15 a.m. and end their day at 3:45 p.m. Gulf Breeze High currently starts classes each day at 7:30 a.m. and ends its day at 2:25 p.m. "Will everyone be satisfied with the new schedule? No," Gulf Breeze High Principal Sylvan Ladner said. "But we feel like we can work through the glitches. Any new schedule has glitches. "Times are tough all over the state, and this has to be done. We are working with dual enrollment schedules to make sure students can still get their dual enrollment classes with Pensacola Junior College. But every year students have to work around work schedules, classes and extra-curricular, so this will just be one of those things we will deal with. "If we all work together, we can make it work." Navarre High currently starts at 7:05 a.m. and ends at 2:04 p.m. Navarre students will see more than a two-hour difference in scheduling with classes starting next year at 9:15. When the issue was raised at last week's school board meeting, only three parents from an overflow crowd asked to address the board. One father of two elementary aged students from the Milton area told the board it needs to make sure students could be dropped off earlier than they allow now, since parents still have work schedules that will not change. Superintendent John Rogers said the board has been studying the possibility of having a community education program for early drop-offs, and also possibly staggering teachers' schedules with some coming into school early in the morning to accommodate early drop-offs. Another parent of high school students asked the board to reconsider starting high schools at 9:15 a.m. "By making high school students get out of classes last, they will not be able to work afterschool jobs as much since the law dictates how late in the day a minor can work," the mother of a middle school and high school student in Pace said. "And, it will also put them later into the practice times for sports, and they won't even be home to start their homework until 9 or 10 p.m." "These are trying times," Rogers said. "We've already been told by our state legislators that we can expect to lose between $5 million and $7 million next school year in state funding. And now they have told us to expect another cut in funding next November or December, over and above that amount. "We are probably going to see two or three years of tough times in this district. This is just the beginning. But we are trying to find ways to cut back without impacting the classroom."
|
for larger version       Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
