local politics, my rant - anyone else think this was a horrible idea?

In May the orange county school board decided by a 4-3 vote to flip the start times for middle school (6-8th grade) and high school (9-12th grade). So now middle school children will be going to school from 7:20am to 2 pm, and high school will be from 9:30 am to 4 pm.
Now can you imagine what that is going to do, 6th to 8th graders unsupervised for 2 extra hours in the afternoon? I'm not saying that all children that age are thugs or anything, but tweens/young teens left by themselves??? Not to mention that they are now going to be out on the streets in the dark to get to school in the morning.
Now the high school children will find it more difficult to work after school and get homework and chores done since they won't be getting out of school until 4pm. Not to mention all the new drivers that drive themselves, and sometimes their friends, to school are going to be dealing with the tail end of rush hour traffic, or if they opt for the 0 period class before school, they will be in the middle of rush hour traffic.
How are the after school programs for the middle school children and even the elementary school children going to be staffed and kept affordable without the use of high school students?
This is my daughters senior year. They both wanted to get jobs, but will now be limited to working on the week ends, which ends up limiting what type of jobs they can apply for.
A group of citizens decided that the superintendent position should be an elected position, instead of appointed as it is now. Now the school board has enough money to sue the office of elections to try to keep the citizens from being able to decide if that should be an elected position, as it was when I was a child, but they still need to "flip" the start times to make up for budget shortcomings. It seems to me that the "flip" will actually cost more, not just in $$$$, but safety of the children.

 

The Chicken Lady, you are to be commended on your dedication to providing education to the youth of this nation I wish teachers were taken better care of.

The flip is supposed to save money by having fewer busses on the road as there are a lot of elementary schools, fewer middle, and even less high schools. Instead of building all these schools where the houses are, they are building them fairly close to each other. Within a 5 mi radius of me there are 5 elementary schools (three of them are within a mile of each other, the other two are three miles away), three middle schools, and two high schools. The school start times are graduated. Last school year, high school students were in school from 7:20 to 2, elementary from 8:30 or 8:45 to 2:45 or 3, and middle from 9:30 to 4.

We are zoned for the high school that is a mile farther, and higher level of traffic to get to that school, which will be even worse trying to get there for the 9:30 start, I have personal experience from having to pick up one of my girls for a doctors appointment and it was a nightmare, and that was without all the students and buses. The buses that have to travel the farthest will now also have to compete with the worst traffic in the morning and the worst traffic in the afternoon.

The three school board members that voted against it did so because it was an issue that was brought before them without any chance to really look at wether or not it would save any money. Once they noticed the backlash from the community, the three that voted against it held community meetings to get input as to how the board could come up with the savings that "flip" is supposed to create. One of the board members had on the agenda to present these ideas to the board and ask for reconsideration, only one of the members that voted for it stayed for the whole meeting. When he made the proposal to her, she wouldn't budge, and would not reopen the issue for further consideration.

The majority of people speaking against it are the students. The children that ride the bus will not be able to participate in the 0 period class. The biggest problem with this is all the waste that could be cut out, but isn't.

We have the "FCAT" test on which schools are graded on. If a student attends a "failing" school, they can transfer to another school, and will have transportation provided. It is done in what I feel is a moronic way, they will run one bus, for one student, cross county, not necessarily the closest school with a higher grade but the school that the parents want their child to attend. We also have "magnet" schools with transportation provided for the students that wish to attend those, again one or two students cross county on a bus. I transfered my children to the closer high school so they could participate in FFA, which was not offered at the other school as it is one of the few schools not to have an FFA, I have to provide transportation.

I live in the same house I grew up in. When I went to school there were three bus stops in the neighborhood. Same neighborhood, a few more houses, and four more bus stops???? The bus route was in the shape of an L when I was young, with all three bus stops being on the long part of the L, the neighborhood was divided in three areas - west, central,east and you could go to whichever bus stop you wanted, in all reality this neighborhood could all go to the central stop, it is only a few hundred feet from the west and east, but now some stops are less than 50 feet apart.

Jeb Bush gave us the FCAT, based off the TCAT that Texas used to have. This test was more important to him than PE, Art, Music... If it is not on the FCAT test, the children didn't need to learn about it. The text books are now all geared to the FCAT. Now Governor Christ feels that PE needs to be back in school, and the FCAT is still really important, so more cuts to other classes to add mandatory PE. If the school gets an A on the test, they get extra funding. If they get a B or C, funding stays the same. If they get a D or F, they lose funding???? Make sense?