Effective Wednesday September 9th, superintendent Dr. Martirano, with permission from the Board of Education (BOE), pushed back start times by ten minutes along with bus arrival and departure times by twenty minutes. His informed decision serves to resolve logistical problems that affect bus transportation, such as traffic delays, competition for space with other vehicles and limited route timing. These issues were causing buses to show up to school late and inconsistently. As it turns out, the main reason behind the buses’ lack of punctuality is not having enough time picking students up before school starts. Such a change means students must modify their morning and evening routines, while physically, as well as mentally, adjusting to their new wake up times. In some students’ opinions, the schedule was changed at the wrong time, even though it greatly increases the timeliness of buses.
”It makes it easier for buses to get here on time, and all I have to do is get here ten minutes earlier, but starting [the schedule change] on a Wednesday is strange since students have already had three weeks to get used to their routine,” says Senior Timothy Chung.
Others feel that the new start times are a benefit to the implementation of extracurricular activities. “[The earlier time] is an advantage for us as cross country runners because we get ten extra minutes to transition from our sixth period class to our extracurriculars,” explains Senior Preston Hong.
The majority of students hold neither negative nor positive views in regards to the new start and bus times, and agree that it makes the management of clubs and extracurriculars a smoother process. “[The change] is neither an improvement nor a downgrade, and makes running Culinary Club easier,” says Junior Nishith Tripathi.
Evidently, Dr. Martirano’s choice on behalf of the BOE, not made lightly to any degree, has an overall positive impact on bus punctuality without too negatively affecting other school-related activities or functions. His decision was formed with the concern of arrival delays, an issue that interferes with instructional time at the beginning of the day and causes students to rush to their first period classes. For the foreseeable future, the new school times aim to fix the domino effect caused by the combination of buses lacking time to prepare their routes, traffic issues and a constant deficiency of parking space.