UPDATE – BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board did not vote Thursday evening on a plan that would have staggered school start times.
Instead, they voted on a substitute motion that calls for two transportation updates daily to school board members.
The earlier proposed start times were divided into three tiers with different schools starting at different times. The proposed times were a result of the large bus driver call out that forced schools to start late.
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System unveiled proposed staggered start times for all schools in the district in a school board meeting on Thursday, Aug. 24.
The proposed start times are divided into three tiers with different schools starting at different times. The board proposed the times as a result of the large bus driver call out that forced schools to start late.
In Tier 1, all high schools, secondary and parochial charter schools would start at 7 a.m.
Tier 2 would have schools start at 8 a.m. and include some elementary schools, elementary charters and middle schools.
Tier 3 would have schools begin at 9 a.m. and include elementary schools.
In the meeting, school board members asked Narcisse and his team questions. They brought up concerns about bus drivers not being able to pick up students due to their second jobs and getting children to before and after care.
Dadrius Lanus, the president of the school board, said he rode on the busses the last two weeks and challenged the top-tier employees to ride a bus all day, without air-conditioning, to understand how “bad the problem really is”.
“And as I have said from the beginning my concerns about this plan are still the same concerns and I want everybody to know I simply just cannot support it. I’m sorry,” he said.
Superintendent Sito Narcisse said, “we still have to pick up kids missing routes and I have to put kids first. Money will not solve that issue.”
