WESTFORD – Discussions continued among subcommittee members on proposed changes to school start times.
The School Start Times Subcommittee met last week to discuss potential changes to student academic hours.
The subcommittee met with Westford Academy Principal Dan Twomey and Director of Athletics Jeff Bunyon to discuss changes to the bus schedule.
Both Twomey and Bunyon agreed that 8 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. start times would account for after-school activities and bus transportation.
Dr. Christopher Chew noted that changing start times may increase the bus ridership and that they should keep that in consideration when continuing discussions.
“We have a number of people who say that they get rides to school so that they can get some additional sleep so that they don’t have to get up as early to get on the bus,” Chew said, “And so that could potentially make a more ridership for six through 12.”
The schools for grades three to five which currently start at 8:25 a.m. could start as late as 9 a.m. under the proposal. The K-2 schools could start around 9:05 a.m. with one bus route for all elementary and early elementary students.
Some buses in the district are not currently operating at capacity.
“One of the big things we found as we were kind of probing is that those K-5 buses are running pretty much half empty to begin with because of the way it’s set up, and so we’re trying to create a little bit of efficiency as well,” School Committee Vice Chair Kathryn Clear said.
Subcommittee members said they aim to consider future redistricting and make sure they don’t have to do “another big overhaul.”
The subcommittee’s goal is to make the bus system more efficient and give students extra time in the morning.
“If you tell a high school student that you’re going to get two and a half hours of more sleep a week, they will take it and they’ll use it. So if people are going to be like ‘what’s the difference with 25 minutes,’ it’s a huge difference,” Twomey said.
Subcommittee members said they did not anticipate a schedule change would incur additional costs to the town. WestfordCAT reported in July that a recently negotiated contract with Dee Bus could cost an additional $500,000 over the term of the agreement compared to the town’s previous agreement.
The subcommittee will continue to discuss district start times at a future meeting in November.
