CFISD schools may get late start/dismissal schedule

Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District officials have received numerous e-mails in the past few weeks from parents wanting to know more about proposed changes to school start and end times next school year.
Recently the district pinpointed $10 million in budget cuts for the 2010-11 school year. One of those is a proposed move from a three-tier to a four-tier bus schedule, which means that there would changes to schools' start and end times to accommodate a high school bus run, a middle school bus run, and two elementary bus runs.
A decision has not yet been made as to the start times for each level.
Because of the high level of interest in this matter, Cy-Fair ISD Superintendent David Anthony sent out a Key Communicator" letter on March 12. I wanted to reprint that letter here in case it got lost in the Spring Break" shuffle.
The letter
Dear Key Communicator:
Based on several emails that the Board members and I have received, I want to provide you with the facts regarding the implementation of a four-tier transportation service model and the impact it would have on the beginning and ending times for our campuses.
Each year, we review start/end times of our campuses and make changes to meet transportation requirements. This year, WCL Enterprises conducted an efficiency audit in CFISD and one of the recommendations for saving approximately $1 million was to implement a four-tier transportation program instead of the current three-tier system. In order to implement a four-tier program, some campuses would begin the school day at 9:10 a.m. and end at 4:10 p.m.
We have been discussing this issue with our principals and collecting input regarding all of the possible scenarios for populating the four tiers. For discussion purposes, a late arrival/late dismissal scenario was created for each campus level -- elementary, middle school and high school. I believe the reason rumors are rampant regarding high school starting at 9:10 a.m. is due to the research that has been prevalent for years indicating that high school students perform better academically if they start school later than 8:00 a.m.
We have not made a final decision regarding a proposed schedule for the implementation of the four-tier program. We do hope to have that proposal ready in early April. Once that is accomplished, another Key Communicator letter will be sent to all of our stakeholders for whom we have an email address.
Sincerely,
David Anthony