Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I knew of a perfect solution. NOT changing the bell times. Not spending the 5 million to research the options and 5+ more million to implement it. For a school system so in need of millions that was $10-15 million extra right there. Teens get 20 more minutes of sleep and now the ES kids get higher class ratios. What an F'd up system of wasted money.

No, that's not a perfect solution. High schools really did start too early. Middle schools, too.

Says who? My kids were fine with it and got home before dinner even with sports. Those 20 minutes won't help anyone, especially ES teachers, working parents and coaches. The teens will just stay up later texting away. Do you really think they will be getting 20min more of sleep? My first bell was 7:08am in HS. Last bell was 1:58pm. Kids played sports or worked after classes. Homework at night. We all did just fine.

You honestly think it was worth an extra $15 million dollars of the budget? And you think it is fair Tier 2 ES kids are getting off a school bus close to dusk in the winter. All for 20 minutes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our draft bus school schedule is out and our route is not scheduled to start until 8:40 am. That's nearly half an hour later than last year but bell times are only scheduled at 10 minutes later than last year. What is up with that? In the old system, I could take the kids to the bus stop and still get to work before 9 am, now I don't think the bus will even get to our stop until 8:50 which means getting to work close to 9:30. The wait list for before care at our school is years long, what are other parents planning to do, just suck it up and be late to work everyday? We are a tier 1 school, I can't even imagine what working parents in tier 2 schools have to deal with.

Here's a solution. Go private.

We are in private. School starts at 8 with 7:30 am drop-off for free. Dismissal at 3 pm with aftercare available as needed. Annual tuition <$10K a year. Better education and no bureaucracy.

I agree. We applied to a top 5 school and receive 68% financial aid. Cost is $10K a year and it comes with breakfast and lunch, which are delicious. Organic, lots of options etc... 8:00am to 3:30pm for the entire school and can drop off as easy as 7:15am and free one hour aftercare. ($6/hr after that.) Class sizes 12-16 for a grades. Lots of recess, field trips, STEM, gardening, PE 4-5x a week, art 2-3x, music 2x. We will never go back to public. I would give up
a lot of luxuries (cars, bigger house, extracurriculars) for an education like this. Most people won't do that though. Status or more important than education in this country.

YOUR cost may be $10K per year, but that doesn't mean THE cost is $10K. By my math, the tuition cost is around $31,000.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our draft bus school schedule is out and our route is not scheduled to start until 8:40 am. That's nearly half an hour later than last year but bell times are only scheduled at 10 minutes later than last year. What is up with that? In the old system, I could take the kids to the bus stop and still get to work before 9 am, now I don't think the bus will even get to our stop until 8:50 which means getting to work close to 9:30. The wait list for before care at our school is years long, what are other parents planning to do, just suck it up and be late to work everyday? We are a tier 1 school, I can't even imagine what working parents in tier 2 schools have to deal with.

Here's a solution. Go private.

We are in private. School starts at 8 with 7:30 am drop-off for free. Dismissal at 3 pm with aftercare available as needed. Annual tuition <$10K a year. Better education and no bureaucracy.

I agree. We applied to a top 5 school and receive 68% financial aid. Cost is $10K a year and it comes with breakfast and lunch, which are delicious. Organic, lots of options etc... 8:00am to 3:30pm for the entire school and can drop off as easy as 7:15am and free one hour aftercare. ($6/hr after that.) Class sizes 12-16 for a grades. Lots of recess, field trips, STEM, gardening, PE 4-5x a week, art 2-3x, music 2x. We will never go back to public. I would give up
a lot of luxuries (cars, bigger house, extracurriculars) for an education like this. Most people won't do that though. Status or more important than education in this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our draft bus school schedule is out and our route is not scheduled to start until 8:40 am. That's nearly half an hour later than last year but bell times are only scheduled at 10 minutes later than last year. What is up with that? In the old system, I could take the kids to the bus stop and still get to work before 9 am, now I don't think the bus will even get to our stop until 8:50 which means getting to work close to 9:30. The wait list for before care at our school is years long, what are other parents planning to do, just suck it up and be late to work everyday? We are a tier 1 school, I can't even imagine what working parents in tier 2 schools have to deal with.

Here's a solution. Go private.

We are in private. School starts at 8 with 7:30 am drop-off for free. Dismissal at 3 pm with aftercare available as needed. Annual tuition <$10K a year. Better education and no bureaucracy.

I agree. We applied to a top 5 school and receive 68% financial aid. Cost is $10K a year and it comes with breakfast and lunch, which are delicious. Organic, lots of options etc... 8:00am to 3:30pm for the entire school and can drop off as easy as 7:15am and free one hour aftercare. ($6/hr after that.) Class sizes 12-16 for a grades. Lots of recess, field trips, STEM, gardening, PE 4-5x a week, art 2-3x, music 2x. We will never go back to public. I would give up
a lot of luxuries (cars, bigger house, extracurriculars) for an education like this. Most people won't do that though. Status or more important than education in this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I knew of a perfect solution. NOT changing the bell times. Not spending the 5 million to research the options and 5+ more million to implement it. For a school system so in need of millions that was $10-15 million extra right there. Teens get 20 more minutes of sleep and now the ES kids get higher class ratios. What an F'd up system of wasted money.

No, that's not a perfect solution. High schools really did start too early. Middle schools, too.

Says who? My kids were fine with it and got home before dinner even with sports. Those 20 minutes won't help anyone, especially ES teachers, working parents and coaches. The teens will just stay up later texting away. Do you really think they will be getting 20min more of sleep? My first bell was 7:08am in HS. Last bell was 1:58pm. Kids played sports or worked after classes. Homework at night. We all did just fine.

You honestly think it was worth an extra $15 million dollars of the budget? And you think it is fair Tier 2 ES kids are getting off a school bus close to dusk in the winter. All for 20 minutes?

Anonymous wrote:Where do we find the new bus schedules?

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are talking Catholic (which we are not), what private school in the DC area is <$10K a year? All the independent schools near us are 3x that number.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I knew of a perfect solution. NOT changing the bell times. Not spending the 5 million to research the options and 5+ more million to implement it. For a school system so in need of millions that was $10-15 million extra right there. Teens get 20 more minutes of sleep and now the ES kids get higher class ratios. What an F'd up system of wasted money.

No, that's not a perfect solution. High schools really did start too early. Middle schools, too.

Anonymous wrote:

I agree. We applied to a top 5 school and receive 68% financial aid. Cost is $10K a year and it comes with breakfast and lunch, which are delicious. Organic, lots of options etc... 8:00am to 3:30pm for the entire school and can drop off as easy as 7:15am and free one hour aftercare. ($6/hr after that.) Class sizes 12-16 for a grades. Lots of recess, field trips, STEM, gardening, PE 4-5x a week, art 2-3x, music 2x. We will never go back to public. I would give up
a lot of luxuries (cars, bigger house, extracurriculars) for an education like this. Most people won't do that though. Status or more important than education in this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our draft bus school schedule is out and our route is not scheduled to start until 8:40 am. That's nearly half an hour later than last year but bell times are only scheduled at 10 minutes later than last year. What is up with that? In the old system, I could take the kids to the bus stop and still get to work before 9 am, now I don't think the bus will even get to our stop until 8:50 which means getting to work close to 9:30. The wait list for before care at our school is years long, what are other parents planning to do, just suck it up and be late to work everyday? We are a tier 1 school, I can't even imagine what working parents in tier 2 schools have to deal with.

Here's a solution. Go private.

We are in private. School starts at 8 with 7:30 am drop-off for free. Dismissal at 3 pm with aftercare available as needed. Annual tuition <$10K a year. Better education and no bureaucracy.

Anonymous wrote:

I knew of a perfect solution. NOT changing the bell times. Not spending the 5 million to research the options and 5+ more million to implement it. For a school system so in need of millions that was $10-15 million extra right there. Teens get 20 more minutes of sleep and now the ES kids get higher class ratios. What an F'd up system of wasted money.

Anonymous wrote:That stinks. Ours is scheduled about 15 minutes later than last year, I think. We'll see how it works in practice. I think they had to scramble some of the double bus lines, so your bus is now probably doing a double run (delivering a set of kids before your kids).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're at a Tier 2 school, and my kids will start at 925am, meaning about a 9am bus stop. It's awful - the school bus now comes later than the Metro buses in our neighborhood, which makes it impossible for anyone to use public transportation. And it puts many of us on the roads into DC after the rush hour protocols have ended, which will extend commute times considerably. Meanwhile, in the afternoon, the kids will be getting on the bus after rush hour has already begun in our area (near NIH.) So, much longer trips home. Thanks MCPS!

I'm all for pushing back bell times for older kids, BTW. But I doubt they get much benefit from a 20 minute AM reprieve. And there should have been much more careful consideration of the impact of simply randomly pushing back ALL bell times.

They didn't randomly push back all bell times.

I agree that a 20-minute-later start time for all schools was not a good solution. But all of the other proposed ideas were even worse solutions. And the status quo wasn't good either. I don't think that a good solution is possible as long as MCPS has to bus 100,000 kids a day. If lots more kids could get themselves to school by walking/biking/public transit, then a good solution would be possible.

Anonymous wrote:We're at a Tier 2 school, and my kids will start at 925am, meaning about a 9am bus stop. It's awful - the school bus now comes later than the Metro buses in our neighborhood, which makes it impossible for anyone to use public transportation. And it puts many of us on the roads into DC after the rush hour protocols have ended, which will extend commute times considerably. Meanwhile, in the afternoon, the kids will be getting on the bus after rush hour has already begun in our area (near NIH.) So, much longer trips home. Thanks MCPS!

I'm all for pushing back bell times for older kids, BTW. But I doubt they get much benefit from a 20 minute AM reprieve. And there should have been much more careful consideration of the impact of simply randomly pushing back ALL bell times.