Start times at 10 to 11 Poudre School District elementary schools will be changed by 15 minutes or more and most middle schools will start 15 to 20 minutes earlier as part of a bell-optimization plan to address a bus driver shortage district officials said is reaching a critical breaking point.
The changes in start and dismissal times are necessary to avoid having to reduce or cancel current routes, PSD Chief Operations Officer Jeff Connell told the district’s Board of Education on Tuesday night. The shortage of bus drivers is a problem throughout the country and some of PSD’s neighboring school districts, he said, have resorted to “rolling blackouts,” eliminating service on certain routes on certain days.
That’s not an option PSD is considering, Connell said during his presentation and Board of Education President Kristen Draper reiterated afterward.
About 9,000 of the nearly 26,000 students at PSD’s non-charter schools ride district buses to and from school.
“I do not want to have to go to stop busing; I don’t want to have to do that; it is absolutely not equitable,” Draper said. “And that is what other districts are doing, and they’re doing it here in Northern Colorado.”