Homer High School was going to host a transportation meeting this Thursday, January 26, to discuss rescheduling school hours to meet transportation budget cuts. While the meeting has been rescheduled due to poor weather, the material that will be discussed remains the same.
One solution to the funding problem that has been presented, which seems to be both the most plausible and the most controversial, is to move the school day from its current start time at 8:30 am to 7:40 am. This solution has many benefits and setbacks; while athletes would arrive home an hour early under the new schedule, it also means that members of the Early Bird classes, which take place before school, will have to arrive at 6:40am.
High School students are not the only ones affected by this change; the most prevalent issue is that the children attending McNeil Canyon Elementary will also have to consider changing their schedule. These students already attend school at 7:20 am and the schedule change could create an issue with transporting the students to and from town.
Dr. Gee said that while he suggested that the start time should remain at 8:30 am, the School District is in charge of making the final decision. One of the major things that they are considering is the supervision of younger children in the afternoons. If they were to let out the Elementary students an hour earlier rather than the High School then there could potentially be an “hour of time in which the younger children would be at home, completely unsupervised.” Dr. Gee said.
Dr. Gee said that he will work with the counselors at our school to try and schedule junior and senior classes later in the day to offset the early start time, and he is going to re-suggest keeping the 8:30 start time to the district.
The rescheduled time for this meeting is currently Wednesday, February 1, at 5:30 pm. Anyone with concerns about the transportation changes should consider attending the meeting.