Consultant Next Step in Start Time Discussion
Ad-hoc Fairfax County school board committee will present recommendations in July on what a firm should offer the system.
Photos
After 14 years of discussion and two formal attempts to address the issue on its own, the Fairfax County school board will look to a consultant to help it move forward on a resolution to start the system's high school schools after 8 a.m.
Chairman Janie Strauss (Dranesville) appointed a four-member ad-hoc committee Monday to better articulate the system's values in overhauling its schedule, defining what the board is comfortable exploring and which issues are non-negotiable.
Members Sandy Evans (Mason), Ryan McElveen (At-large), Patty Reed (Providence) and Ted Velkoff (At-large) will deliver recommendations to the board at a July work session, at which point the board will be able to develop a request for proposal to hire an outside consultant, Strauss said.
While officials and stakeholders have long run into disagreements on how best to implement later start times at Fairfax County high schools — suggestions on Monday alone ranged from public-private partnerships to a small pilot of later start times within the system — most school board members agreed they wanted to avoid ending in the same place they've often landed over the past 14 years: with limited options and no clear path on how to move forward.
"I don't think we can look at this and throw our hands up … It’s not acceptable to me and I'm not going to rest on that," Dan Storck (Mt. Vernon) said.
The complexity of reworking the transportation system of a district so large has been attempted, and left on the table, by a firm before, said Dean Tistadt, the system's chief operating officer and head of facilities and transportation services. FCPS went to market last year for a bus system optimization, but the selected consultants "couldn’t make it work. They walked away," he said.
After the board passed its most recent resolution in April, staff researched the 40 largest suburban school systems in the country, identifying 10 that were most comparable to Fairfax County, among them, neighboring Loudoun County.
It also studied, by the board's request, the Arlington and Minneapolis school districts.
A common theme of districts that successfully run or have switched to later start time models is a compressed morning bus schedule, Tistadt said.
The starting bells for the county’s 194 schools span two hours, Tistadt said, from 7:20 to 9:20 a.m.; most other systems that have achieved later schedules have cut that span to an hour and 10 minutes — in the case of Loudoun, between 7:50 and 9 a.m., he said.
Shortening that span in Fairfax — which uses 1,081 buses to transport about 130,000 students each day — would likely raise costs and increase the number of schools affected, two of the biggest arguments critics have used against the switch in the past.
Still, working through the issue is more than just a transportation problem, Evans said.
"I think it's a mistake if we see it only as a transportation [issue]," Evans said. "We need to be doing this … for health reasons, for academic achievement, for graduation rates."
It's also about taking deep community concerns, which have blocked proposals before, and working through them to find better solutions.
"We’ve all gotten emails from people that aren’t saying 'no,' they’re saying 'hell no' to us and are just amazed that we would spend any money going down this route when we already had this dialogue and I think we need to respect that part of the community and hear what they have to say," Smith said.
Megan McLaughlin (Braddock) pointed to Arlington Public Schools, which presented three options for a schedule shift and used community input to create an "Option Four," which it implemented in 2000.
Board members offered a range of issues consultants could consider, including:
Transportation Costs, Schedule and Level of Disruption. Some suggested getting Board of Supervisors' support to help shoulder additional costs. But Ilryong Moon (At-large) recalled how the supervisors committeed to full-day kindergarten as a priority several years ago, but left the school board on its own to figure out how to implement and fund it.
Transportation Optimization, Efficiency and Public/Private Partnerships: Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield) suggested reaching out to a national organization — such as Fedex or UPS — which may have more technology available.
Change Management: How to better engage the public, work through solutions to their concerns and incorporate them into final options.
"How much change can people swallow and how do you help people through that process?" Superintendent Jack Dale said.
Core Values: Determine some board principles on transportation, including travel times, walking distances and how much of its budget should go toward transportation.
"Out of the Box" options: Exploring "8th period," distance and online learning and other "unusual solutions" to scheduling problems.
The ad-hoc committee will make recommendations on which of those paths, or offer others, a consultant should follow.
"This isn't about the fact that we can't achieve it or that some part of the community is going to lose out … you don't have winners and losers," McLaughlin (Braddock) said. "I think it's important we protect all of the different parties involved."
Stu Gibson
10:21 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
"There is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes
Rob Jackson
11:07 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
My understanding is that there is more support for the time change from McLean HS parents & students than from Langley HS parents and students because of the terrible morning traffic on Georgetown Pike. Unlike most FCPS high schools, Langley has only one entrance road - the Pike.
Bob
12:38 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Ground Hog Day (the movie).
Bob
12:39 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
@Rob Jackson the elephant in the living room is rush our traffic which will be increased by later start times at our area high schools. This is a county wide issue.
Scott B
12:59 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
YES great idea. lets study this some more and more.... pay some more money here or there to 'consultants' and then revisit this years down the road again once again doing nothing. Sounds like the 8 years of Route 1 widening talk and no action since BRAC was announced ---
COMPLETELY forgetting that kids can not function at 7:20 am and it severely impacts their helath and education! This is just common sense people. Most of you probably went to high school and should remember this.
Rob Jackson
1:49 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Scott B
The McLean Citizens Association's Education & Youth Committee worked with parents of local HS students and the PTAs. There was strong support among the McLean HS parents, but opposition from the Langley HS parents because of traffic. I agree wholeheartedly with you on your statement that kids don't function well at 7:20 am. My son is a junior at LHS and he is a bear to get up in the morning. My post was intended to indicate the issue is more complex than it looks at first blush.
T Ailshire
9:13 am on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
I went to high school (as did most readers here, I expect) and functioned perfectly well at 7:20.
Of course, I kept my after-school activities reasonable, didn't try to do everything, did homework when- and wherever I needed to, didn't spent 2 hours worrying about makeup and hairstyles, and was prepared for years and years of having to be to work at 7:30.
Dave Solomon
2:13 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Thank you, Erica, for trying to report both sides of this contentious issue. For years the discussion has been dominated by SLEEP, with the remaining 99% of the community only voicing their opinion when it appears that the SLEEP solution is about to be rammed down our throats. Two items receive very little press. First, the need for high school sports practices to end by 5:30 pm so that students can participate in neighborhood sports and the neighborhood sports can have access to the fields and gyms. Second, the school board needs to endorse "Period 0" where custodians would be required to open the schools two hours before the school day starts, to allow students who want to participate in activities before school to do so.
Julie Strandlie
2:43 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Missing from this discussion is the impact of late start/end times on elementary school children. This must be a comprehensive conversation, not one just focused on high school start times. Columbia Elementary's start time was pushed back from 8:40 am to 9:10 am a few years ago, and next year it's slated to start at 9:15. Our kids get out of school after 4pm. While HS students may not have their brain engaged at 7:20, elementary school children who ate lunch before noon have checked out by 3pm. Teachers cannot teach at that point. Late start/dismissal times also make our teachers' evening commute much more difficult. On top of this, parents need to get to work -- and when they can't find or afford before school care, it is common for them to leave their K-5 children home alone and expect them to get to the bus on their own. What happens when the bus comes early, or doesn't come at all? These little kids are wandering the neighborhood alone and only thanks to trusted and concerned parents of other children do they get to school. Next year, our daughter will start middle school at 7:45 am; our son will start elementary school at 9:15. This is not acceptable for learning, safety, or family work/life balance.
Scott B
2:45 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Why does high school sports practices 'need' to end by 5:30? Seems like if it is the schools facilities the schools can take precendent. I played 3 sports all through high school and we got out at 3, and practice went later than you are proposing. So that seems like nothing but an excuse....And why open the school 2 hours early? I am not sure I get that.
Kathy Keith
4:18 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Scott, It might surprise you to know that some high schools must use park facilities and the facilities of middle schools for practice. Some high schools have very limited practice space. They must share these with the youth leagues. Also, practices after 5:30 require lighting.
Mark Carolla
4:27 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
More than transportation consulting needed here. Left out of this discussion is that FCPS may simply be too big and the logistics of getting students to and from schools are just too complicated and dysfunctional. "Back in the day" most school districts were centered on neighborhood schools where the majority of students could walk to school. The start time of every school that I attended was 8:40 AM...from grade K thru 12. This was true both in the small town in Upstate NY and the suburban community 20 miles from the Empire State Building I attended. Fairfax County needs to consider regionalizing or breaking down the schools into smaller units. When my kids were attending Oakton High Schol we lived south of Herndon and it was a 12 plus mile bus trip. Ludicrous. When I was attending Pearl River High School in crowded Rockland County, NY no student lived more than maybe 3 miles from the high school, and elementary schools were situated so we had time to WALK to school and to and from home at LUNCH. Of course, school districts were based not on the county but on the township or city. The situation is worsened by the tacit encouragement of students driving to school at the high school level by providing inadequate bus service to accommodate after school activities. I would suggest due to changing demographics and unconstrained development without proper "Green" urban planning we have a sprawling FCPS that doesn't have a correlation of school locations with students.
Mark Carolla
4:41 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
By the way - with the disclaimer that I do transportation consulting and did things sort of kinda like this back in the day when I was a Transportation Officer - why the need to spend the taxpayers' money on an outside consultant? Do we not have a professional transportation staff on the school and county payroll? Do we not have regional and urban planners? Put them together on the clock in a task force to come up with solutions for each school. I know that I might sound like the big mouths that used to make my educator Dad cringe at open School Board Meetings but this should be something we could do "in house" if there is the mandate and courage to come up with politically unpopular solutions - and one size might not fit all for the entire FCPS.
Sonia Baker
6:17 am on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Thank you!!! I am shocked that the media is not focused on the money that the board will be wasting on a repeat study. How can we in good conscience hire outside consultants.
Greg Brandon
5:09 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Tisdadt says he isn't adverse to changing the bell schedule but that he hasn't been able to figure it out. I think we should turn-over the challenge of finding the best way to accomplish this important goal to university professors and their students. This is an operations research routing problem. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing.)
The school board should create a competition open to undergraduate and graduate student groups to find the best way to achieve the desired outcome. Winning entry gets $10,000. This would certainly be cheaper than paying consultants and would be less susceptible to meddling from FCPS staff.
Sonia Baker
6:14 am on Tuesday, June 19, 2012
What will this consultant find that is different than before. This is ludicrous and I would like to know if they are hiring the same consultant. They are hiring a consultant to assuage the sleep coalition; so that when fairfax county votes it down they can still be re-elected. Make the decision already! We need this money and to get rid of a useless board members.
Kelly
5:22 am on Sunday, July 15, 2012
I would like to echo what Marc Corolla has proposed. It has already been recognized that Fairfax County is large and diverse enough to have representatives elected from different areas so why not acknowledge that there are certain issues - facilities, traffic etc. that require different solutions for schools in different regions. No student should have to ride a bus 12 miles to get to school. I grew up outside of Fairfax County and have never understood why all the schools don't start at the same time. So it is time to think outside the box on this issue and get some fresh ideas from heads that don't have a vested interest. Consider that if schools were regionalized, more kids could walk to their neighbourhood schools at a reasonable hour cutting way back on the need for buses which would improve the health of the kids, boost our communities and save thousands of dollars. It is time to rethink some of the ideas that have us stuck on this issue.