Start Times Study: Buses, Private Schools Major Constraints

ANDOVER, MA — The Edulog transportation study, commissioned as part of the process to potentially set new start times at Andover schools will be presented at Thursday's school committee meeting. The study was expected to offer options to optimize bus routing and potentially spend money on more buses, in order to have secondary schools start later without requiring the major changes to elementary schools in the no-cost options on the table. The study found that without increasing the number of buses, the controversial "flip" option is the best option for decreasing the gap between elementary and secondary school bell times.

In the flip option, elementary schools would start first, and the earliest pickups would be at 6:10 a.m., for the private Montessori and Pike schools. In response to major push back from elementary school parents, the committee's chairman said at a meeting that he did not see any pickups before 6:30 a.m. happening. If there's no change in the number of buses or private school bell times, the best option is the status quo, the study found.

If the district purchases more buses, however, there are options where no students are picked up before 7 a.m. Edulog's recommended option if the district wants to shrink the gap but minimize the increase in buses is a version of the flip option where the bell time gap is cut to 45 minutes. Elementary schools would start at 7:45 a.m., with first pickups at 7 a.m., and secondary schools would start at 8:30 a.m. This would require 8 additional buses.

If there is no constraint on buses numbers, the study recommends a version of the shift option, where the order of bell times remains the same but all schools start later. With 13 additional buses, elementary schools could start at 9:15 a.m. and secondary schools at 8:35 a.m. The earliest pickup would be for Montessori and Pike schools, at 7:11 a.m., and the latest drop-off would be for South Elementary students at 4:28 p.m.

Both of the above options require minimal or no changes for private school start times, which the study authors preferred to the alternative. They also eliminate double runs, which requires at least five additional buses.

The study includes 12 different options, some of which it finds little value in. For example, in an option that would have three bell times, splitting the middle schools from the high schools, elementary school pickups are too early, they found.

"All elementary school students in this task would be picked up between 6:24 a.m. and 6:55 a.m., which was considered to be an unacceptable result for the district," the authors wrote.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.