Jefferson City Public Schools' Board of Education approved a major operations change by the district at last Monday's meeting, and the News Tribune asked the four school board candidates running for election April 2 what the next steps for the district should look like.
The current JCPS school board decided Monday that school times for the 2019-20 school year will be 7:45 a.m.-2:45 p.m. for elementary schools; 8:40 a.m.-3:40 p.m. for high schools; and 8:50 a.m.-3:50 p.m. for middle schools.
The changes will push the current high school start times 50 minutes later into the day, and end times by 45 minutes. Middle schools' start times will also be pushed back 50 minutes, and end times by an hour.
The biggest changes for elementary schools will be at Belair, Cedar Hill and Lawson, where school will start an hour and 15 minutes earlier than it does now, but school will also let out earlier by the same amount.
The start and end time changes are intended to maximize bus transportation cost savings and also take advantage of research that shows later start times for secondary students are beneficial to their academic achievement and health.
People in the community still have questions, though, about what child care options will be available that they may need because of the changes, and how and why the school board made the decision it did.
The four JCPS school board candidates are Steve Brown; incumbent board Treasurer Lorelei Schwartz; Jessica Green; and Stephanie Johnson.
How big of a role should the school district play in child care?
Brown: "Day care is the responsibility of the parents. Now, with that being said, I'm all for breakfast (being offered) at school," to help children do better academically, but other than that, "the school system should not be involved with child care."
Schwartz: "I don't think it's the district's responsibility to provide day care," but the district should provide information for parents to find day care that's suitable for them and "to help assist them, to let them know what resources they can tap for day care."
She added she would like to see more children be more involved in activities, which may alleviate day care needs and allow those students to reap the benefits of participation in extracurricular activities.
For example, she said there could be an expansion of middle school activities before school - maybe something such as a reading club for a certain number of days each week or month - which "defeats the purpose of sleeping in," but she understands parents have to do what they have to do.
Green: Given the district's decision to change start and end times, it should have "a big role" in child care, "whether that be giving maybe an incentive to some teachers to stay late or come early, and giving them a stipend for that," or helping Jefferson City YMCA's Y-care or the Jefferson City Boys & Girls Club to find funding "so they can add staff, so they can take on more students."
By the district helping Y-Care or the Boys & Girls Club find funding, she means "whether it be helping them find an outside grant, or trying to come up with a way that some of the money that (the district will be) saving on the bus system can help go to those programs to help with the staffing they need to help them take on more kiddos."
If teachers were paid to stay later or come earlier, "students could work on their homework. (Students) could play games if they've got some board games or something like that available, just kind of some leisure time if they wanted to, or if (the district) wanted to implement an actual program, that would work as well."
Johnson: "I don't think that the school district needs to get into the business (of child care) and become competition," for the Boys & Girls Club and Y-Care. Johnson is the executive director of the Boys & Girls Club.
She added, however, that in light of the increased need for child care and the financial savings for the district through the start and end time changes, the district should be willing to talk to existing child care programs and offer "any and all" assistance with facility usage, writing grants and monetary assistance.
"We are definitely doing all that we can to secure grant funding to expand services to the west side of town," Johnson said, but the district could help in providing a facility or filling gaps in funding.
"I really believe that the district wants to do what (it) can to help us be successful, because they know this time change now has put more of a need on our services."
How can communication be improved between the community and the district, and between the community and the school board?
Brown: "I don't know that the school board gets out enough. I think that the school board members should visit schools, attend PTA meetings, things like that. I don't know that they do that now. If they don't, they ought to," and talk to principals about see what issues are, if that's not currently being done. "That's what I would do."
"All the science, all the information says that what the school board did was a sound decision," Brown said of the decision itself, adding "the changes in times was about the kids, not about the convenience of the parents."
Schwartz: "I certainly think that that is the responsibility of both parties," she said of communication between parents and the district.
"Whether people didn't know about it or they chose not to come" to events that provided information about the then-possible start and end time changes and the reasoning behind it, "perhaps we need to get feedback from our parents as to what is a good time to have a community forum," Schwartz said.
She added perhaps a Saturday would be better, or later in the evening.
She said she's seen that a lot of people never heard the discussion about saving money on bus transportation costs or feedback from a local pediatrician about the benefits of later start times for older students.
Schwartz said one parent contacted her and the other board members about the start and end time changes before speaking in open forum at the February board meeting, but other than that, "I didn't have anybody contact me about this."
She said she did seek out some other opinions, and "I'm happy for anybody to contact me."
Board members' contact information is available at www.jcschools.us/domain/3154.
Green: "For one thing, prior to the district deciding to make the change, before they actually implement the change, I feel like especially with something like this, they should have already had some ideas as to how they were going to accommodate families that needed child care."
"But what (the board) did was they made the decision, but they don't have a plan for what they're going to do when it comes to meeting extra child care for students and families who are going to need it now. The community communicated what they were going to need. The district didn't put a plan in place for that, before making the decision for start times and end times."
Johnson: "I think the district does a very good job of providing places where you can come and voice your opinion and your thoughts. I think that the district did its due diligence in doing a lot of research to see what are best practices, what is in the academic best interest of the children. I think where I was worried that this (issue of communication) might come up (was) at the last school board meeting, because the school board picked the least popular start and end times. I understand why they made that decision," but she also knows the perception can be 'Why was an opinion asked for if the least popular was picked.'
"The board didn't make that decision because we didn't care about the voice of the people," but because the (survey) data showed that elementary families and staff leaned one way and high school families and staff leaned the other.
She said leaders need to make tough decisions sometimes, but "you've got to communicate the why" and back it up with an explanation. "I'm not necessarily saying the school (district) didn't do that, but you can't communicate enough."
Johnson added communication is "a two-way street. It's lots of communication on a lot of different platforms, and I think the district tries to do that," such as via phone calls, texts and emails, but parents also need to be taking advantage of those and other opportunities such as Coffee with Larry events and not ignore chances to share their voices - "they need to be listening."