Schools

Mineola School Board Debates 2012-13 Start Times

Impact of buses at Jackson, proximity to Chaminade influence proposal.

By the time of the March 1 meeting of the , there were 54 comments on a post on Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler’s online blog about three sets of proposed start times for the 2012-13 school year.

“We had some very good responses on this,” the superintendent said during the meeting at the . “There is no right or wrong answer here.”

Option one reverts the times of Hampton and Meadow to approximately their original times, but comes with the issue of the 8 minute proximity of dismissals between  and .

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“If you have two children and you pick them up it’s problematic to get from one to the other in that 8 minute time span,” Dr. Nagler said.

Option two moves dismissal times back, but Jackson’s end time of 2:49 p.m. comes into conflict with that of ’s of 2:50 p.m.

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“Those are the old times at Jackson so it recreates the problem that we used to have,” the superintendent said.

Option three had the most objections due to the early start time for the youngest grades.

Option One Option Two Option Three High School  7:26- 2:18 High School 7:26- 2:18 Meadow 7:30-2:07 Middle School 7:49- 2:41 Middle School 7:49- 2:41 Hampton 7:30-2:07 Hampton 8:12- 2:49 Jackson 8:12- 2:49 High School 7:54-2:46 Meadow 8:42- 3:19 Meadow 8:48- 3:25 Middle School 8:20-3:12 Jackson 8:50- 3:27 Hampton 8:48- 3:25 Jackson 8:45-3:22

In all scenarios, child care – SCOPE particularly – was brought up as well as before and after school. The district currently has three sites for SCOPE and will “run as many as we have parents for,” Dr. Nagler said. At least 15 parents must commit before a before-school program can start.

The district does run intramurals in the buildings, but the superintendent said that he could change the way they are run for next year and have all the buildings open a little earlier for those children who want to participate in intramurals.

Another option is the expansion of the breakfast programs. Mineola currently has a small one at and “thriving” ones at the and . There is a cost to the district to run the program which is associated with supervision for the students.

According to Dr. Nagler, director of transportation Bill Gillberg favored option two “on the condition that we create .”

The proposed bus loop would begin on Saville Road, where a curb cut would be made at the beginning of the Jackson property behind the Chaminade athletic center. The busses would immediately come onto the district property and run parallel to the street. A total of 10-12 ft. of the field next to the playground would be used to allow the busses to enter the back of the Jackson Avenue School parking lot.

“The logic there is the children can muster in the cafeteria, which is the biggest space, everyone who takes the bus stays in the biggest room we have in the building, they line up by busses, all of the busses’ doors are faced appropriately, the correct side for children to enter on a pavement side,” Dr. Nagler said.

The buses would exit by going around the building to the east side and exiting via a cut into Jackson Avenue.

“It takes them completely away from the Chaminade craziness of their busses because it goes from Marcellus to Jackson,” the superintendent said. “Regardless of time, we need to have a safer bus lane for our children at Jackson.”

Parents pickup would be on the other side of the building with students gathering in the gym and walkers dismissed from front of the building. Parents cannot use the proposed loop while buses are present.

“In theory it works, the problem with us is our children don’t ride the buses,” Dr. Nagler said. “The children that are eligible to ride the buses, they don’t all ride the buses and we have a much bigger number of parents that pick up kids than the half-mile radius would tell us.”

The superintendent said that he would have drawings of the proposed loop at the March 15 meeting.

Board vice-president William Hornberger said that he did not prefer option two because parents would continue running into the Chaminade buses, adding that he was leaning toward option one “with a modification of some timing around obviously the people who may have kids in either Hampton and Jackson to dismiss that one or Meadow and Jackson, but to separate them a bit more.”

With option two, the district would be using all the buses in the first three runs and then have them freed up.

“Because it’s the whole district you’re bussing – high school, middle school, Jackson – you need all your busses, then you can branch off and do half the district, half the district,” Dr. Nagler said, explaining Gillberg’s reasoning. “It’s easier and cleaner for him to move the busses.”

In option one the district would need to bring all the busses all back together for the final run of the day at Jackson.

“It poses some logistical issues for him in doing that; I’m not saying it can’t be done.”

The superintendent said he would like speak with Gillberg to revisit the times, with some of the times to be determined by the SCOPE program and how many buildings in which it is run.


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