Getting her fourth grade son to and from school has been a carefully scheduled routine for Tamara Garcia.
The single mother drops off her son at Booker Elementary School at 7:30 a.m. — 10 minutes before classes begin at 7:40 a.m. — giving her time to clock in to her 8 a.m. job. Her son waits at an after-school program until her shift ends so she can pick him up.
When Booker Elementary leaders announced that classes would begin at 9:15 a.m. next school year, Garcia’s balanced routine looked as if it would be turned upside down. That’s why she and hundreds of other Booker parents signed a petition opposing the 1-hour-35-minute change.
“I really just don’t have any help with pickups and drop-offs,” Garcia said. “I wouldn’t be able to make it to work on time, so I would possibly have to find new employment, and that’s not very easy to do.”
Less than a week after petitioning parents showed the signatures they collected to Clark County School District officials, Booker Principal Cullen Skyles announced Wednesday the start time change would be reversed. Classes at Booker Elementary, which is near North Martin Luther King Boulevard and West Carey Avenue, are now set to start at 7:30 a.m. in August — 10 minutes earlier than the school currently rings its bell.
‘Parents were in an uproar’
The petition received 310 signatures from parents and guardians who were dropping off or picking up their kids, according to Michael Hollis, a Booker parent who helped collect signatures. For a school with only 329 students, Hollis said, the petition showed overwhelming support for keeping the school’s start time the same.
“The parents were in an uproar” upon learning about start times changing to 9:15 a.m., Hollis said. “They were like, ‘Michael, we don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re single-family mothers. We work for the hotels. We can’t get our schedule changed.’”
Garcia said she collected signatures for two weeks outside Booker Elementary before Hollis, who is also a member of Booker’s school organizational team, joined her for a week.
While speaking with parents, Hollis said he heard several of them express concerns over a 9:15 a.m. start time. Some said the need to pay for additional before- or after-school care programs would have strained their wallets, while others worried their rigid work schedules couldn’t bend to accommodate the change, according to Hollis.
Since Booker does not have buses routed to take general education students to school, Hollis and Garcia both feared the start time change could compromise student safety since many Booker children walk to school. Hollis added that most Booker students stay late after school for tutoring or clubs, so classes finishing later could have put students walking home in the dark.
“We have had incidents where children did get hurt for being hit by vehicles, so that raises another concern,” he said.
Across the valley, announced changes to school bell schedules have been met with a mixed reaction as students, parents and staff reconsider how they’ll get to school on time. Superintendent Jhone Ebert acknowledged the differences in opinion from Las Vegas Valley residents over the changes during a press conference Thursday, but she stood by the move as a research-driven decision to help adolescent students be more alert in class.
Ebert said the district has only re-evaluated the start time change at one school — Booker Elementary — after its principal asked district officials to reconsider the change. A school district spokesperson said in an email that the district tried to accommodate principal requests when possible as they created the new bell schedule.
Hollis said a 7:40 a.m. start time has been the norm at Booker at least since 2007, when he worked in the school’s front office. He said he was happy to see Booker keep a similar start time going forward.
“It works well for the community here,” he said.
Contact Spencer Levering at slevering@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253.
