Superintendent Dr. Shannon Saylor gave the board its first look at a threetiered bus schedule and school start and end times for next year during the Aubrey ISD’s school board meeting on March 19.
With the district's continued growth, Saylor presented the new schedule for discussion to get the board’s opinion before formally presenting it for approval at a future meeting.
“What we’re looking at is a way to stagger our start times and create space between elementary, middle and high school,” Saylor said. “With 4,500 kids and adding a seventh campus [and] a second middle school, we’re looking at a way to help decrease buses arriving late and minimize traffic on the roadway at the same time.”
The new proposition would give 35 minutes between each tier, having doors open at the elementary at 7 a.m. and the day end at 3:05 p.m. The middle schools would open their doors at 7:35 a.m. and end at 3:50 p.m. Finally, the high school would open its doors at 8:10 a.m. and end at 4:15 p.m.
“It would mean improved punctuality for kids which would enhance academics and reduce anxiety,” Saylor said, citing time for breakfast as well as tutorial time.
The new system would also cut 4-6 routes off the current schedule, each costing the district $150,000 a year to maintain. Though the district will still continue to grow, requiring more routes in the future, this could help it break even on routes moving into next year.
Most board members voiced their approval for the proposed schedule with Benton Bland inquiring about an even wider timeframe for getting the doors open and letting kids inside.
“That’s one thing to think about with these later start times,” Bland said. “People have to get to work, and we could think about having a chaperone there so they can open the doors into at least a holding area so they’re not sitting outside for an hour in the rain or whatever. Even as early as we start now, there’s still kids sitting out there sleeping on the sidewalk because they can’t get in the school.”
Later in the meeting, Mustang Special Utility District’s connection fees returned to the agenda, again inciting discontent from the board.
To connect Owen’s Middle School, which features a 6-foot-line in order to later feed an additional elementary school on the same site, Mustang is charging the district $735,000. This fee is listed purely as a connection fee, though the board has previously intoned it appears to just be a substitute for the impact fees the special utility district is no longer allowed by law to charge.
“Basically, it’s a loophole, a capital recovery fee,” Construction Consultant Dr. Scott Niven said. “I don’t know if anyone has ever challenged it, but everyone pays the same high
rates.”
Board President Jim Milacek was again the most vocal member of the dais on the matter.
“I know we have to approve this so we can get this school open, but it stinks to high heaven that we have to pay this,” Milacek said.
“It makes it very hard for us to balance budgets building schools when we have to pay these kinds of fees. I wish people in the community could get a sight of this. It is beyond the scope of what taxpayers should have to pay to put in a school to connect water and sewage.”
The board later voted unanimously in favor of the cost.
“We’re really not in favor, but we’ve got to,” Vice President Colleen Dow said.
