Jackson board will review change in school schedule
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

JACKSON - Board of Education members will take another look at a new schedule of school times that has upset some parents.

However, that second look at the issue does not necessarily mean the school times will revert to their previous schedule, according to the superintendent of schools.

According to information provided by the Jackson school district, the instructional schedule for the 2007-08 school year will be as follows:

+ Crawford-Rodriguez and Holman elementary schools, 8:45 a.m. to 2:55 p.m.

+ Elms and Switlik elementary schools, 9:05 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.

+ Johnson and Rosenauer elementary schools, 9:35 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

+ Goetz and McAuliffe middle schools, 8:05 a.m. to 2:27 p.m.

+ Jackson Liberty and Jackson Memorial high schools, 7:15 a.m. to 1:38 p.m.

Superintendent of Schools Thomas Gialanella told the Tri-Town News that the move was made necessary by state imposed school spending limits and the fact that for several years in a row Jackson residents have defeated the board's proposed budgets.

"Even though we looked at this [change in school schedules] a number of times in the past couple of years, we always put it off because we didn't want to do it. This year we had no choice," the superintendent said.

Gialanella said that for the 2007-08 school year there were cuts that had to be made that district administrators never had to make before, including cutting teachers.

He said about 100 members of the public were on hand and approximately 20 speakers came to voice their thoughts on the school time change during the public portion of last week's board meeting.

"They were very emotional and passionate about the inconvenience" that the change in school times will cause them and their children, Gialanella told the Tri-Town News. "According to them there is a large inconvenience that must now be faced with before-school and after-school activities. We are going to try to make some accommodations for that. The board is relooking at it."

Gialanella said the change in school times will save $300,000 in transportation costs.

"That's the reason why we went to an unpopular decision," he said. "Nobody is going to be happy with the decision. We knew this was going to be an issue when we started it. At this point in time we really don't have a choice anymore."

Gialanella said re-examining the issue does not mean there will be changes made to the announced school schedules. The board members "said they would look at it and see if there can be any adjustments [to the schedule] and the bottom line is we came to [this decision] after a lot of discussion and I don't know if it's going to change."

One area where changes could be made is in child care.

"I think there are a couple of things we can do, particularly concerning child care, in the way we structure our payments to child care," he said. "We're going to try to make some adjustments so if someone only needs child care for a short time they won't have to pay the full price in those schools. I think we can at least do that. But the board is still going to make a decision and look at it."

Gialanella said he realizes there will be an inconvenience for some people because of the change in school times and for some people it will not be a small inconvenience, but he said if education is as important as people think it is, these are the adjustments they will have to make.

"Remember, this is a school district that has lost five or six budgets in a row," he said. "We've been growing. We haven't gotten much more in state aid to accommodate that growth. Our transportation aid has been frozen. I don't know where they expect us to go with this."

For more information on the transportation and time changes go to www.jacksonsd.org/home.asp, click on the Board of Education link and then click on the presentation on Efficient Transportation link.