KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools is considering an idea that would push the start times for almost all of their students.
The idea of changing school start times came about as KCKPS tried to solve a transportation issue, according to district leaders.
During this academic year, they noticed an influx of middle school students in need of a ride on the school bus.
Those students used to be in elementary schools where the distance requirement to ride the bus is living eight-tenths of a mile or further from the school.
But for middle and high schoolers, the requirement goes up to a mile and a half, meaning many who didn't need to ride the bus before now need to.
"Although 1.5 miles may not seem like it's a lot, some of our neighborhoods are not walkable or the route that the students have to take to school does not have necessary have sidewalks," Dr. Anna Stubblefield, superintendent of Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools said.
The district is also facing a driver shortage, and so to address both challenges, they'd like to have students start their day 30 minutes later — except for students at Sumner Academy.
"Because kids are bussed from Sumner from all over the district, so having them start earlier and everyone else starting later would allow more buses to be available," Stubblefield said.
The superintendent brought the proposal to parents in the district in a virtual meeting Monday evening.
She wants them to fill out a "ThoughtExchange" survey to gauge interest.
In the chat, some of those parents worried about the ripple effect a later start time would have on their kids.
"We just wanted a way to give everyone an opportunity to express their perspective so that we can give true authentic feedback to our board around our discussion," Stubblefield told parents.
Parents can continue to fill out the survey until next Monday.
The feedback will be presented to the Board of Education when they meet the following day.
At this point, there's no hard deadline as to when the board will decide on this idea.
But if it gets approved, it would begin in the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
