Busing study: Later start times cost $67,000 (or maybe less)

Shifting to two-tier system could be key to start time change

Posted 5/22/18

A consultant hired by the Barrington School Department concludes that it would cost $67,000 annually to add another bus and a half to the afternoon routes and push back middle school and high school …

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Busing study: Later start times cost $67,000 (or maybe less)

Shifting to two-tier system could be key to start time change

Posted

A consultant hired by the Barrington School Department concludes that it would cost $67,000 annually to add another bus and a half to the afternoon routes and push back middle school and high school start times. 

Armed with the fresh analysis, the school district plans to keep studying the issue, but is not committing to any immediate changes in start times. Barrington School Committee Chairwoman Kate Brody said the next step is to continue embedding initiatives, such as a change in start times, in the district’s strategic plan. 

Ms. Brody said the committee is asking the consulting firm for more information about how Barrington would switch from a three-tier to two-tier busing system, but added that more work needs to be done before the district can shift to later start times for middle and high school students.

“We are not backing off it (later start times),” said Ms. Brody. “But you have to have a structure in place to support the initiative long-term. It has to be sustainable.”

Ms. Brody said the start time initiative must first be embedded in the district’s new strategic plan; while the plan was recently approved by the committee, many of the action steps in the plan are still being completed by district officials. Ms. Brody anticipates much of the strategic plan's details to be “concrete” by September.

Supporters of later start times at the high school and middle school were initially encouraged by the new school transportation study.

The detailed report, which was completed by the consulting firm “Futures Education” and shared during the May 17 school committee meeting, offered an in-depth look at the current school transportation system in Barrington as well as new options that could allow for later school start times for the district’s older students. 

Some of the options called for a switch to a two-tier busing system, while others kept the current three-tier system in place.

Option 2A – High school at 8:30

One option — it was called “Option 2A” — detailed a two-tier system where students in pre-kindergarten through Grade 5 would start their school day at 7:45 a.m., while high school and middle school students would start at 8:30 and 8:40 a.m., respectively. (Currently, the school district employs a three-tiered busing system, where high school and middle school students are the first to start their school days at about 7:40 a.m., followed by students in grades pre-k through 3, and finally students in grades 4 and 5.)

Officials said “Option 2A” would require the addition of one-and-a-half buses.

Supporters of later school start times in Barrington have been waiting years for the district to make the change. They point to numerous scientific studies that show a connection between later school start times and healthier students. 

But on multiple occasions, school officials have delayed the initiative. On one occasion, the school committee voted to delay start time changes in order to build an implementation plan. Another time, the district said there was not enough money in the budget to support the shift in start times.

Transportation costs have been the biggest driver in the financial discussion. 

In 2015, a School Start Time Task Force report stated that Barrington needed an additional five buses to move the high school and middle school start times to 8:15 and 8:21 a.m., respectively. The report stated that the change would cost about $423,000 annually. 

Supporters of the start time change challenged the district on that information. One resident wrote that the school district had been using inflated transportation costs to delay the start time change. More recently, some people questioned why the Barrington School Committee had not requested a transportation study earlier.

Ms. Brody said the district did have an earlier study completed.

“We’ve had two analyses done before,” she said. “There was an external, third party analysis done in 2012. I don’t recall the level of detail.”

Ms. Brody added that the transportation company hired by the district also conducts an analysis of the routes each year.

District pays for half-empty buses

The transportation study offered a wide variety of information, including a ridership issue that appears to be somewhat unique to Barrington. 

According to the study, most school districts have more students riding the buses in the morning than in the afternoon. In Barrington, it’s the opposite. 

“Barrington has significantly more students (291) who ride their assigned school buses in the afternoon than in the morning,” stated the report. “In addition, there appears to be an extraordinarily high number of eligible riders who do not ride their assigned school buses either in the morning (61 percent) or the afternoon (50 percent).”

The report concluded that transportation efficiency is likely impacted by the number of students who are transported to school by their parents or in carpools with other students. 

“In the A.M., while 2,465 students are eligible to ride (school buses), only 950 actually do so,” stated the report. “In the P.M., while 2,468 students are eligible to ride, only 1,241 actually do so.”

Barrington’s unique ridership issue would have a slight impact on a potential change to a two-tiered busing system and, therefore, later start times at the high school and middle school, stated the report.

During the May 17 presentation, the consultant said the addition of one full bus and one mini-bus in the afternoon would cost the district about $67,000 annually.

Bus monitors

The consultant offered district officials a few cost-saving options, including a shift away from bus monitors. 

The district could request a waiver from the Rhode Island Department of Education, which would allow for the school department to replace monitors with paraprofessionals already employed by the district. That shift, said the consultant, could save the district about one-third of its $92,000 annual cost for bus monitors, and it would put people on the buses who likely know the students better than bus monitors do.

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