The Bell Tolls For Thee

A proposed change to start times for public schools in several parts of Charleston County has riled up a fairly negative reaction from a host of West Ashley parents.
Earlier this year, the Charleston County School District (CCSD) published a draft proposal to shift when the tardy bell rings at schools in West Ashley, North Charleston, and Johns Island.
Complaints had been coming in from several affected schools, especially Title 1 schools, which primarily welcome students from lower economic means, that start times were becoming a hardship.
And because of a limited number of buses, the district parses out to schools in the three areas, more than 30 schools could be affected in those three parts of town.
The draft plan came out on the day before Spring Break this year, and, if implemented as presented, could mean drastically different mornings for families of school-aged kids in West Ashley.
While some of the proposed changes were minor, like dropping back Oakland Elementary’ starting time 15 minutes from 7:30 a.m. to 7:15 a.m., others, like St. Andrews Math and Science, would change from an 8:30 a.m. start to a 7:15 a.m. first bell.
In contrast, the plan would push back the start time for West Ashley High School from the current 7:15 a.m. to a more teen-friendly 8:30 a.m.
The proposed draft caused a backlash that, according to CCSD spokesperson Daniel Head, the district was not prepared for. Head said the district had already held two open forums to discuss possible changes and had an online survey.
But the negative reaction caused the district to reopen the survey, which has accepted comments from more than 2,800 respondents, and to recently host another public forum at the Ashley River Creative Arts school.
In response to the draft proposal, parents packed the gymnatorium at WAHS, and have organized via social media with several websites and Facebook pages to rally other concerned parents.
Several parents interviewed for this story said they felt it was important that as many opinion of as many families are included in the discussion before the draft plan becomes the resulting policy, in the absence of any other plan that has been presented by the school district.
Head said releasing the draft plan the day before Spring Break may have inadvertently helped fuel concern, as schools were closed the next week and parents had no one they knew to answer questions.
But, Head cautioned, the plan literally has the word “DRAFT” printed all over it, and that parents need to know that nothing is “set in stone” and the district remains very open to comments and concerns.
Several issues beyond timing are driving the issue for parents. On one hand, shifting start times could result in major changes in the home lives of families with earlier school starts. Sleep would be lost, especially for younger students who typically need more pillow time.
That could push some kids’ wakeup times to the pre-6 a.m. hours in order for them to catch a bus rolling up sooner to accommodate earlier tardy bells.
Stella Tuten said one of her child’s classmates at Ashley River already has to catch a bus at 5:45 a.m. in order to get to school for an 8 a.m. start.
Pushing that magnet school’s time back by 45 minutes would mean that child would have to get out to the bus stop at 5 a.m., according to Tuten.
Additionally, some parents interviewed for this story worried that earlier discharge times for elementary schools could cause financial hardships for working-class parents.
In that scenario, lower-income parents may have less flexible work hours and would have to shell out extra cash for daycare in the afternoon until their shift ended, according to West Ashley’s Amy Kay, a wedding photographer who left her nursing career to spend more time with her children.
Kay’s concern stretches beyond West Ashley’s confines, as more schools in North Charleston would be affected.
Both Kay and Tuten wish more buses could be used in the affected areas to make start times more agreeable and convenient to all parents.
Tuten, a federal consultant comfortable with data mining, did her own analysis of school bus use in the county and found that there appeared to be a disconnect in the allocation of buses.
She said, according to her numbers, several schools East of the Cooper were enjoying a “greatly skewed” ratio of buses to students and ridership than was the case in some of the schools in the three parts of town that could be affected by the proposed changes.
Pinckney Elementary and Laurel Hill Primary schools, she found, shared 26 buses, while similarly sized Drayton Hall Elementary in West Ashley had only six buses serving it.
Head said the call for more buses had been an ongoing one in Charleston County, but warned it wasn’t the panacea it had been represented.
Beyond the expense of buying and maintaining a bus, and the associated costs of fueling the bus and training and paying its driver, it would take time for a bus to be built, as they have to be pre-ordered from the manufacturer.
Additionally, geographic differences between the Mt. Pleasant area, where school sites stretch from McClellanville to the Cooper River, means the numbers of buses serving a school skews the statistics.
Several parents have called for a review of existing bus routes and school zones to possible cut down on transit times.
Head said experienced professionals within the school district “far smarter than me” are in charge of routes, and are constantly reviewing them. And, he stressed, the school district and the publicly elected School Board is open to more comments and concerns.
“That being said, Interim Superintendent Mike Bobby knows something has to change, and that whatever changes are made, not everyone is going to be happy,” he said.
According to Head, a new draft plan would be presented in the coming weeks.