All Guthrie schools to start and end at the same time next fall

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In an effort to lessen time of students riding the bus to and from school, the Guthrie Board of Education unanimously voted to change the start and end times of all school sites for the 2013-2014 school year.

BusAll district wide instruction for students Pre-K through 12th grade will now start at the same time (8:15 a.m.) and end at the same time (3:10 p.m.). The new times will begin this fall for the 2013-14 school year.

Superintendent Dr. Mike Simpson says instruction time will not be reduced with the later start time.

Last year, Guthrie High School had a start time of 7:45 and an end time of 2:45. At the Junior High, classes began at 7:50 and finished at 2:45. The elementary schools will incur more of a minor start and end time change.

Dr. Lloyd Roettger, Transportation Department Route Supervisor, spoke to the board when they met last month on the changes that were agreed upon at Monday evening’s meeting.

Dr. Roettger told board members, that some students were spending nearly two hours on the bus after being picked up just after 6 a.m. and some would not arrive home after school until just before 5:30 p.m.

With the new start time of 8:15, Dr. Roettger says the morning delivery could save 15 to 30 minutes, but the biggest time saver would come after school from 45 minutes to an hour that a student would have to spend on the bus.

“Our goal is to provide the safest transportation available in a cost-effective manner,” Dr. Simpson said. “Another challenge we face each year is finding bus drivers. We have actually raised the pay in order to attract more applicants.”

In addition, fewer buses will be needed to pick up and transport students from school-to-school and in the process hopefully lower the traffic congestion at the schools with the fewer amount of buses.

According to Dr. Roettger, a good portion of the bus riders live within a five-mile radius of Waterloo and Interstate 35 in the 232 square mile Guthrie school district.

Dr. Roettger says families that have multiple children in different school buildings can pick their children up in one location by having them transported from one school to the other for one convenient pick up.

Dr. Simpson says the system is not going to be perfect, but it is going to shorten the amount of time a child has to spend on a bus.

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2 Comments on "All Guthrie schools to start and end at the same time next fall"

  1. This will cause major traffic jams all intersections in town. How are we suppose to drop off 4 different kids to 4 different schools and be to work on time at 7:30 am? When will the kids be able to be dropped off in the mornings?

  2. Paragraph writing is also a fun, if you know after that you can write or else it is complex
    to write.

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