Change will rectify tardiness caused by buses
By:Laura Toto
Hillsborough Middle School students can sleep 10 more minutes starting next Monday.
The Board of Education voted Monday to approve the time change for buses that arrive late in the morning and in the afternoon. The present school times are 8:50 a.m. to 3:26 p.m. The new schedule will be 9 a.m. to 3:36 p.m.
The change is due to three school buses that do not arrive at the middle school until 9 a.m. to drop students off and at least 15 buses that do not arrive until 3:35 p.m. to pick them up.
"The only way to resolve the middle school problem at this point is to adjust the time by 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon," Superintendent Robert Gulick said.
The buses have been arriving late because of heavy traffic and the multiple routes the buses must take before picking up middle school students.
Hillsborough High School students are picked up first, followed by elementary school children. Middle-school students are picked up last, leaving them with the accumulated late time.
The change will not affect the time students arrive home, since the buses have been late since the start of the school year.
"I agree families will not see a lot of change," said board member Joan Sheridan. "A greater impact will be for those children arriving late in the morning."
Parent Suzanne Yates of Daniel Drive voiced concerns that the time change would affect student athletes, who already get pulled out early from their last-period class when they have away games.
With the time change Ms. Yates is concerned the students will get pulled out of their last period class even for home games, which would mean students could miss their last-period class for most of the week.
"I looked into that and we are going to make an adjustment in the start of home games," Dr. Gulick said in a phone interview Wednesday morning. "I believe we can do that."
Home games now begin at 3:45 p.m. Under the arrangement Dr. Gulick proposed, they would begin at 4:15 p.m.
The school board had discussed the changes to the bus schedule at its meeting Oct. 2. In the intervening two weeks, the superintendent’s office has received little feedback on the proposed changes, said Dr. Gulick.
"The faculty has expressed their concern at the end of the day," he said. "We have had very little comment from the public. Absolutely none from the public opposing the middle school times."
Middle school student Rebecca Stein expressed her concerns for the time change. She attends Hebrew School after school in Bridgewater and is consistently late for class.
"I’m not the only one who has to go to these classes," Rebecca said.
Dr. Gulick offered to write a letter to the rabbi explaining why she is late, but she declined the offer.