HILLSBOROUGH: School start times may change

Nearly $1 million in busing savings could be realized

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Hillsborough could save an estimated $950,000 a year by rearranging its school bus routes, but it would mean starting classes at the middle school a half hour earlier than now.
   And the district could save $1.7 million with a more radical plan for busing that would mean high school classes would start at 7:15 a.m. —15 minutes earlier than now — and the Auten Road Intermediate School would begin its day 20 minutes later, at 9:35 a.m. Other schools in the district could adjust starting times as well.
   Greg Gillette, chairman of the school board’s Operations Committee, said Transportation Supervisor Debra Espinosa had given his committee a report on how efficiencies could be realized within her department.
   Over the years, bus routes have been modified and tweaked, he said, but Ms. Espinosa went back to scratch on designing runs and had come up with six options with savings.
   For instance, when ARIS was built in 1999, the district added buses and routes for the new school instead of coordinating with bus companies and rebidding the whole district, Mr. Gillette said later.
   Hillsborough owns just a few buses and contracts its transportation needs.
   Since the transportation department would need months to set up a new system of routes and stops, the board might be asked to make a decision on start and end times of schools — perhaps at the next meeting, Mr. Gillette said. That vote would determine which busing plan could be followed.
   Board member Thuy Anh Le asked if school start times could change by ages of students. Younger kids usually are up and more alert early in the day, she said, where high schoolers — who tend to stay up later and have more extracurricular activities — tend to drag in the first part of the day.
   Mr. Gillette said he agreed in principle, but to start the high school day at 8:30 a.m., for instance, would throw it off schedule from other neighboring schools. (Montgomery and Bridgewater start high school at 7:20, he said.)
   With a later start, athletes, for instance, would lose too much class time at the end of the day in order to board a bus to travel to an away game.