School Starting, Ending Bell Times Will Go on a Rotation Schedule

In an effort to promote fairness, bell times for starting and ending the school day will be rotated every five years, beginning next fall, at almost all San Diego city elementary and middle schools that use bus transportation, trustees decided Tuesday.

The board voted 4 to 1, with Trustee Jim Roache opposed, to implement the controversial rotating schedule at about 20 schools in the 1990-91 year.

Additional schools will be added each year until almost 90 are on five-year rotations. Initially, some will be placed on the generally preferred early times and others on the less popular 9 a.m. start schedules. Those schools that for years have enjoyed the early times will be the first to rotate to later times for five years, and those with late times will be phased in for the early schedules.

Only 12 schools, which are without any bused students, will be exempt from the new procedures. Another 7 schools--Torrey Pines, La Jolla, Fremont, Florence, Longfellow, Loma Portal and Freeze--will remain voluntarily with the late start and dismissal.

Elementary and middle school start and end times will include: 7:50 a.m. to 2:10 a.m., 8 a.m. to 2:20 p.m., 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 9:15 a.m. to 3:35 p.m.

Junior and senior high schools, including the atypical secondary schools at Gompers, Muir and the School for Creative and Performing Arts, will be anchored permanently on 7:30 a.m. to 2:10 p.m. schedules to allow students enough time for afternoon extracurricular activities.

The board said it decided to move ahead with the complex and controversial plan on the basis of equity.

Because the district has a plethora of special integration and special education programs that result in bus transportation of students all over the city, schools now start and stop at different times based on the limited number of buses available to deliver and pick up students.

The district has been under pressure from federal education officials to begin all special education programs at the same time as regular instruction at a given school, in order to allow more special education students chances to participate in regular classes during part of the day (so-called mainstreaming).

But it would cost the district more than $1 million to maintain current schedules--under which most schools begin and end early--and improve the transportation picture for special education children by adding buses. By rotating schools at the same time--and giving those with perennially late times preferred schedules--the district will spend only another $278,000 because fewer buses will be needed.

However, the plan continued to face vocal opposition from parents at schools with longstanding early times. Parents complained Tuesday of the difficulty in rearranging child care and car pools every five years, particularly if they have work schedules that call for them to leave before their children can be driven to school in the morning.

Board Vice President Shirley Weber conceded that trustees were influenced by the strident opposition from parents, and said her ideal would be to give every school its preferred schedule.

But Weber said that with the district facing a possible funding shortage next year, trustees could not justify spending additional money for transportation.

However, Roache said the board may have “created a monster” that could come back to haunt administrators, much like a computerized bus transportation plan that failed in the mid-1980s after costing the district more than $2 million.