LEE COUNTY, Fla. — The Lee County School District is proposing changes to its bus routes, which means either your child's start or end times will be changing, if approved. The district says it's intended to help bus arrival and departure times.
Currently, they're running on a four-tier system, which breaks up the routes by high school, early and late elementary and middle schools.
The new proposal condenses it to three tiers, which the district says will give bus drivers more time to get to the next route.
"We want to make sure that our buses are on time," said Dave Newlan, Chief of Safety and Security and Fleet Operations. "We have a step now where buses will have enough time in between tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 to get to the schools on time."
At a recent Lee County School Board meeting, one person said the current system is setting up the bus drivers for failure. The district reported that 82.5% of drivers are on time in the morning, but in the evening for pick-up it's only 59.5%.
"It’s not necessarily addressing the issue with bus drivers, but making sure bus drivers can efficiently get from point A to point B safely pick up the kids on time and get home," Newlan explained.
Here's a look at the tiers now and what they would change to:
TIER 1 WITH 471 BUS ROUTES:
Currently, the school day for high school is 7:05-1:35 p.m. Under the proposal, this was change to 7:00-2:00 with a 30-minute lunch, rather than 25 minutes. Periods would be 49 minutes, which is currently 47 minutes.
"When students arrive late in the morning, students can be flustered, it can be a difficult situation in the morning," said Dr. Nathan Shaker, Chief Academic Officer. "We know that transportation has been an area of concern for years."
For Skyline Elementary, Hector Cafferata and all K-8 schools will start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 2 p.m. Right now, they start at 7:55 a.m. and get out at 2:10 p.m.
TIER 2 WITH 404 BUS ROUTES:
Right now, early elementary schools start at 7:55 a.m. and it ends at 2:10 p.m. Late elementary schools start at 8:55 a.m. and ends at 3:10 p.m.
In the proposal, all elementary schools will start at 8:40 a.m. and end at 3:10 p.m. with a 30-minute lunch.
"It gives us enough time in between to finish the first route and get to the second route," Newlan said. "We don’t want the kids at the bus stop any more than they have to be."
TIER 3 WITH 300 BUS ROUTES:
Middle school students currently start at 9:45 a.m. and get out at 4 p.m.
If the proposal goes through, all middle schools, Success, Buckingham and Royal Palm will still start at the same time, but would get out at 4:15 p.m. They would have 47-minute periods with a half hour lunch.
Shaker said because of the proximity changes in previous years, they can streamline the number of bus routes and cut back from four tiers to three.
"So once the buses start running more smoothly, we can add instructional minutes to the calendar," he said, speaking about high school students.
Newlan says this proposal will work because they are making it achievable and realistic for drivers.
However, the School Board needs to approve the start and end times first before the district can go forward with the new bus plan.
It would not go into effect until the 2025-2026 school year.
