November 30, 2006

By Virgil Hervey

Is your teenager lounging under the bedcovers 40 minutes later this fall than he or she did last year, and still making it to school on time? Is your third-grader at the bus stop 15 minutes earlier? According to Principal John Gudgel, Yellow Springs High School now has the latest high school start time in the region. And according to Mills Lawn Principal Christine Hatton, the elementary school, which once had the shortest teaching day in the area, now has teaching hours that are more in line with other area elementary schools.

Last year the McKinney School started at 8:10 a.m., the high school at 8:15, and Mills Lawn at 8:30. This year McKinney starts at 8:50, the high school at 8:55, and Mills Lawn at 8:15. That amounts to a 40 minute later start time for the high school and McKinney and a half-hour longer school day for Mills Lawn. The change in starting times came about after two years of administrative consideration and some masterful school bus schedule manipulation by Susie Butler at the school board office, Gudgel said in a recent interview.

The impetus for the change came from the high school and McKinney School, where teachers found themselves teaching for six, seven or eight periods on any given day with no time for collaboration with their colleagues. They felt that they needed a common planning time to address cross-curricular matters and student issues and concerns, similar to planning time that Mills Lawn teachers already had, Gudgel said.

Yellow Springs teachers are under contract to work from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Gudgel said. Under the new schedule, instead of starting the day with a class, they have 40 minutes at the beginning of the day scheduled as follows: Monday, McKinney staff meeting and high school curriculum meetings; Tuesday, all-staff meeting to focus on one essential topic as a whole school; Wednesday, high school staff meeting and McKinney curriculum meetings; Thursday, student support day for parent communication and early morning tutoring; Friday, organization of individual curriculum and course development.

In order to regain some of the minutes lost to the new schedule, periods have been shortened by three minutes from 50 minutes to 47, and a 10-minute break between second and third period has been eliminated. With the later start there is no longer a need for the break, Gudgel pointed out.

“Tardiness is still an issue for some of our kids,” he said, noting that it seems to be the same students who always have that problem.

Most parents have been supportive of the late start time, Gudgel said. The teenagers get more time to rest before school and have time for a better breakfast, and parents reported that the whole process of getting the high-schoolers off is a lot less rushed, he said.

Parents who have registered complaints tend to be those whose work schedule requires them to leave the house too early to drop their kids at school, Gudgel said. As a result, he has noticed more students riding the buses.

Students also like the later start time, but want to know why they can’t come into the building earlier, Gudgel said. The students used to have access to the school cafeteria as early as 7:30 a.m. Due to the high school’s later start time, student access to the building begins at 8:45 a.m. Students who arrive earlier congregate in the horseshoe at the front of the building where cars drop off other students.

Kids hanging out in front of the school when the weather turns cold will be a problem, Gudgel said, and he is looking for a solution. With a tight school budget, he might turn to parent volunteers to help supervise the young people, he said.

Early in the school year several parents reported incidents where students congregating in the drop-off area were almost struck by vehicles, Gudgel said. As a result, he devised a plan to route parents dropping off students away from the front of the building. Consequently, orange cones now block the entrance to the horseshoe in the morning. The new traffic pattern takes parents through the parking lot by the Morgan Building and around to the exit leg of the horseshoe.

The plan is less than perfect, Gudgel said. Sometimes parents have to wait for school buses that are discharging students by the band room and traffic backs up into the parking lot. Additionally, the detour from the Dayton Street sewer replacement project steers traffic through the intersection in front of the school, backing up cars at the stop signs. Increased traffic from the Morgan Building is also a problem, he said.

He is working on revising the traffic plan, Gudgel said, and has considered rerouting traffic away from the horseshoe.

At Mills Lawn, the half-hour longer day has made for a much saner pace, Hatton said in a recent interview. The first and second grade teachers always wanted a two-and-a-half to three-hour language arts block, and wanted to keep recess. With the longer day, they have two hours and 45 minutes most days and three hours some days, and the kids still have a recess, she said. They also have time to conference with each child about his or her reading.

“Elementary school kids start chirping early in the morning,” Hatton said. While the earlier start time might be tough on the teachers, especially those who have to drive some distance, it is good for the kids, she said.

Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com