Pasco County has unanimously voted to alter the school schedule effective January 2022!
School officials in Pasco County say changes must be made as they can’t continue to have students arriving late to school due to the district’s bus driver shortage. On Tuesday, the school board voted unanimously to alter the bell schedule to help fix the problem.
For some schools, this means adjusting that start time by only 10 minutes, but for other schools, it means a difference of over an hour and a half. The changes will take effect in January.
The earliest start time will change to 7:10 a.m. with the final bell ringing at 1:30 p.m. The last group of students would start their school day at 10:10 a.m. and wrap up at 4:20 p.m.
Superintendent Kurt Browning said, "We cannot continue to have a large group of students who are chronically late arriving at school through no fault of their own," said Browning. "This challenge is not unique to Pasco but it is up to us to solve it. We have a responsibility as a school community to do everything we can to provide all students with the opportunity to learn and that includes having a consistent and predictable start and end to their school day."
The district has a shortage of about 100 drivers every day, including backup drivers. The superintendent believes the schedule changes will spread out the route schedules enough to get students to school on time.