Osceola County School Board rejects proposed schedule change, $420,000 savings

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — The Osceola County School Board met Tuesday night to discuss a proposed bell schedule change that would have changed school start times across the county during the 2016-17 school year.

The plan, which was rejected by the School Board, would have increased the number of student contact minutes to 7 hours in all but two schools.

By eliminating and streamlining bus routes, the plan would have also saved the district about $420,000 a year.

It would have also changed -- in some cases drastically -- when county schools started and ended their school days.

A teacher’s union representative from St. Cloud Middle School said 85 percent of the teachers there were opposed to the change.

At St. Cloud Middle School, the proposal would have changed the school’s start time from 7:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. The end of the day would have moved from 1:35 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.

The School Board did not take the idea of changing school start times completely off the table, but rejected the plan as it was presented.

Board members asked district staff to review the times and provided additional recommendations to consider.

District staff and the School Board will spend the next year reviewing the schedules, but for the moment, there is no plan to change them for the 2016-17 school year, district public information officer Dana Schafer said.

Cox Media Group