Last week eyebrows raised and opinions were formed in Madison when Superintendent Dr. Fowler suggested during an October 29th board meeting to start school 75 minutes later on Wednesdays in the 2014-2015 school year.
At Bob Jones, many students are looking forward to the possibility of sleeping in or finishing homework on Wednesday mornings next year. “I think students need a break during the week,” sophomore Gen Phillips comments.
The schedule change, effective in all Madison City Schools, would save school money that would be spent paying substitute teachers.
According to Dennis James, the Madison City Schools student services director, the district spent almost $70,000 in just the elementary schools on substitutes to fill in for teachers who were in professional collaboration meetings.
Currently these meetings have mainly been held during half-days that the school system has every nine weeks, but according to a press release on the Madison City Schools’ website, many meetings are scheduled during school days.
“To accommodate those meetings, we usually end up having substitute teachers in the classroom,” Superintendent Dr. Fowler explains in an interview with WHNT.
While this type of late start schedule proves successful at Spain Park High School and Randolph School, many students and teachers are worried it will disrupt weekly life in Madison.
“It’s good that the [school district] is thinking of ways to save money, but there are better ways to save money than affecting everyone’s schedule. The traffic patterns on Hughes Road will be messed up one day during the week…and dual working parents are going to have a hard time trying to manage the 75 minute [delay] one day a week,” points out United States government teacher, Coach Edwards.
Donald Rizzardi, a sophomore at Bob Jones, is worried about the possible change as well. “It would be really confusing to me, having to go to school later on one day and earlier on another,” he said.
Still existing merely as a suggestion, the change is only in the nascent stages of the implementation process.
In Dr. Fowler’s interview with WHNT, he reveals that the school district’s elementary principals “are very excited,” and that Madison City Schools will be “more than willing to offer child help in the mornings.”
