CHENEY—The Cheney Public School Board is postponing its decision on staggered scheduling until its May 25 meeting to give families a full three months to prepare for the impending change for the coming 2022-23 school year.
Superintendent Rob Roettger asked the board to postpone the decision until there is a solid understanding of how it might impact students, families and accessibility to resources for all parties involved.
“The pandemic hit and all the sudden we went from 55 bus routes and drivers to 44 —you saw that loss,” Roettger said. “We had that initial staggered schedule a year ago, mostly due to the pandemic, and then as we started planning for the fall while we were down 10 drivers. That’s why we’re in this situation.”
The staggered scheduling means Cheney Middle School, Cheney High School and Westwood Middle School would be in session from 7:50 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Elementary schools would be in class from 8:50 a.m. to 3:20 p.m.
Roettger said Salnave needs some special planning.
“We’ve had some discussion back and forth.” Roettger said. “We’re trying to get our Salnave kiddos on the bus and not just sitting on the bus in some of those transition times—trying to figure out the best times that they can be dropped off and picked up.”
Another concern at the forefront of this discussion was the loss of instructional time due to students leaving classes early to attend extracurricular activities during the afternoons.
Roettger presented a chart with a breakdown of each sport, the season they play in, competition levels and the percentage of class missed.
“If you look at baseball, varsity, spring, they’ve missed roughly 34% of their fourth period class,” Roettger said. “But if you miss 34% you’ve missed a third of that class. Whatever that happens to be, there are challenges our students will face.”
There are a lot of different ideas being considered by the superintendent and the board, postponing the final decision on the staggered scheduling until the next school board meeting.
“I want to be absolutely positive that if I tell you ‘I think this is how we should move forward and you act on that, we have all of the necessary data,” Roettger said. “I’m still leaning towards flipping that schedule based on many of the factors that I mentioned today.”
Students from Home Works and Cheney High School also presented the board with considerations of their new and revised ASB constitutions.
The board approved both ASB constitutions.
As their last order of business, board members held a 30-minute recess during which they did a walk-through of completed high school additions before giving their final approvals.
Roettger and the school board have completed all contractual requirements to give final acceptance and approval of the new renovations at CHS, including an addition of a gym, 18 classrooms and a new performing arts venue.
Michaela is a former newsroom intern at the Cheney Free Press. She covered stories on education, city government, cops/courts/fire departments and local businesses.
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