How do elementary schools start so late?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so so jealous. I'm in LCPS and school starts at 7:30. It's the biggest fight all year round to get them to school on time. And not one parent I know of can keep a full time job and still be able to pickup at 2:30. It's just a ridiculous end time.

LCPS parent here. You'll love it when they're in HS.

[Anonymous]

Our Elementary School starts at 8:45. Still, do agree that's difficult for working parents. I had the same thought as you, OP, when I was younger. Couldn't believe it and wondered how I'd make it work.

Alas, as with everything else when you have kids, you figure it out. There is before and after care, but we have found that having an au pair has been our best option. Others form little groups with other parents in the neighborhood, where one or two might be stay at home parents. It literally takes a village to raise kids.

[Anonymous]

Too many people rely on bus usage. If that changes then they can change times.

[Anonymous]

Every single year. Like clockwork.

[Anonymous]

Sports, busses etc. In a perfect world it would all stert st 8 or 8:30.

[Anonymous]

The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

LCPS shares buses and they manage to have ES first and HS last.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

LCPS shares buses and they manage to have ES first and HS last.

OK but the poster in in Fairfax County which doesn't. There is currently no plan to re visit start times in fcps whether we like it or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

LCPS shares buses and they manage to have ES first and HS last.

This is the FCPS forum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

LCPS shares buses and they manage to have ES first and HS last.

OK but the poster in in Fairfax County which doesn't. There is currently no plan to re visit start times in fcps whether we like it or not.

Loudoun also has more than 10 fewer high schools than FCPS and 81 fewer elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

The latest ES start time is 9:20 and it suuuuuuucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want the opposite (early ES, late HS)? Move to Loudoun County.

NP. Where I went to school, all the elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools all started around 8:15. Like a civilized school district.

People have been sold a bill of goods here with this "economies of scale" stuff and these large school districts and inadequate bus fleets.

And how big was that school district exactly?

I grew up somewhere with 6 elemetnaries, 2 junior highs, and 2 high schools (graduating class of 220 kids, so all of these schools were pretty small) and even then the ES, MS, and HS had different start times due to the bus situation. And this was 30 years ago when there was no bus driver shortage.

*You know the bus driver shortage is recent, right? Because so many have left for Amazon delivery, uber, door dash, instacart, etc., right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every single year. Like clockwork.

Yup, there needs to be a sticky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The latest ES start time that i am aware of in FCPS is 9:20 so perhaps OP had a typo?? The reason behind the late start time is that the MS, HS and ES all share busses. there are ~180,000 student in FCPS so sharing buses is a must. Middle Schools start the earliest 7:15-7:30, busses start picking up around 6:45-6:50 am then High Schools start around 8:10-8:30 then Elementary schools start.

No typo. The op was looking at a schedule from a couple of years ago when everyone was online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't have any kids yet, but live on the same street as an ES. I noticed the car line this morning and was surprised how late it was, so I checked the FCPS site and see that most ES in the county start at 9:45. How on earth do working parents make that schedule work?

You are exaggerating. My kids' ES bell schedules start at 8:40 AM and 9:15 AM. They get out at 3:25 PM and 4 PM.

If MOST ES start at 9:45, they get out at 4:30 PM, and the bus riding kids don't get home until 5:30-6 PM. Not happening for elementary kids.

I'm really not exaggerating, this is what I was looking at: https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/BellSchedule2021.pdf
Granted it appears to be a couple years old.

No, those were special covid bell schedules, when schools only had 50% (or more or less) students in the building on special schedules. Our ES actually started at 10am - virtually. (At least I think, my memories of that time are fuzzy, it was all so weird and terrible.)

The bell schedules have never been like that, before the pandemic or after/now.

+1, this was an off year. The 2019 times are the current times.