CAMARILLO : New Busing Plan to Shift School Times

The Pleasant Valley School District has adopted a new busing plan for next year that will stagger starting times for the district’s 6,700 students, a cost-free alternative to buying two new buses.

In a 3-1 vote Thursday, the Pleasant Valley board of trustees decided to start the day for Santa Rosa Elementary School’s 400 pupils at 7:55 a.m., which is 45 minutes earlier than the other elementary schools and 50 minutes earlier than the two intermediate schools.

Next year, Santa Rosa will end at 2:40 p.m., and all other schools will finish at 3:25 p.m.

All 11 elementary schools now start at 8:15 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. The two intermediate schools begin at 8:20 a.m. and end at 3 p.m.

“I’m recommending to try it for a year and see how it works,” Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said.

Trustee Jan McDonald was the sole dissenter, saying she was not confident that the new schedule would allow the buses to get to school on time.

Board President Leonard Caligiuri and Trustees Leonard Diamond and Ricardo Amador voted in favor of the plan. Trustee Dolores Rains was absent.

Until the state passes its budget and the district knows whether it will have to make massive budget cuts and eliminate all subsidized busing, Caligiuri said, the plan seems to be the only alternative. “It’s really about the only chance we’ve got until we’ve got more information,” he said.

The plan comes three months after the board directed Hamilton to come up with a creative way to bus 150 students from eastern Camarillo to schools in other parts of the city that have space for them.

The financially strapped district adopted the staggered starting times as an alternative to spending an annual $25,000 for the next seven years to buy and operate two new buses.

By staggering the starting times, the bus drivers will be able to drop children off at Santa Rosa Elementary School before heading off to other schools in time for the beginning of their days.