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The Greenville County Middle and High Schools Will Start 15 Minutes Later Next Year

The Greenville County School Board has approved the administration�s recommendation to adjust middle and high school start times 15 minutes later effective next school year. The Board also directed the administration to develop a proposal to minimize any negative impact after discussing later start times for afternoon bus routes for elementary magnet school students.

In 2010-11, middle schools will begin at 8:30 a.m. and high schools will begin at 8:45 a.m. Start and end times for elementary schools will not be impacted, and bus morning pickup times will not change for any K-12 student because of the change to school start times. School dismissal times for middle and high schools will adjust 15 minutes later, to 3:15 and 3:45 p.m. respectively.

The recommendation to change school start times arose because the current window of time between elementary and secondary school start times is inadequate, causing nearly 47% of middle school students and 37% of high school students riding school buses to arrive late at school.

As a result, students miss important instructional time and interrupt class for all students. In the afternoon, middle and high school students riding the bus are picked up well after the end of the school day.

Mindful of the need for many parents to drop off their children en route to work, schools will establish acceptable morning drop-off/pickup times for car riders.

The State and school system have exhausted all other means to improve bus transportation including rerouting and adding buses when State resources allow. A comprehensive State Department study of the school bus transportation system for Greenville County Schools included the recommendation as an essential step to improve bus transportation.

Other Areas Impacted by Middle and High School Start Time:

* Provide students with more time in the morning at school to prepare for the school day.
* Decrease the number of late buses for transportation of special needs, NCLB, and magnet students.
* Employees� morning and afternoon duty schedules adjusted to provide supervision of students; afternoon duty time is expected to decrease.
* Length of school day would not change.
* Increase the present bus fleet capacity with additional bus routes.

(Image provided by The Greenville County Schools.)