Freetown Lakeville contemplates new school start times to alleviate bus delays

LAKEVILLE —  A revision of school start and dismissal times may be on the docket for Freetown Lakeville schools.

As a result of ongoing issues with afternoon school bus delays, Freetown Lakeville School officials are contemplating solutions, one of which may be adjusting school schedules. 

The issue was discussed at the Freetown Lakeville School Committee’s meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 23. 

“We need to figure this out,” said Superintendent Alan Strauss. “We have some decisions to make as a district in terms of what is the best way to improve our transportation in the afternoon so parents and kids are able to get home when they’re supposed to get home.”

In some cases, buses are leaving schools 25 minutes later than their scheduled departure time, according to an analysis presented during the meeting. 

Several solutions were offered by First Consulting, an outside firm the school is working with to address the issue. Proposals included spanning out school start and dismissal schedules, creating communal bus stops and increasing the number of buses going to the schools where the biggest delays occur. 

Several bus routes involve stops at all schools in the district, starting with the high school. Bus delays at the first stops along the route compound and by the time buses reach the George R. Austin Intermediate School, the halfway point of their route, they’re already running late. This creates a “bottleneck” and results in buses arriving significantly behind schedule to the two elementary schools, the last stops on the route, according to First Consulting. 

The consulting firm presented an analysis showing how the situation would be improved if high school and middle schools started 10 minutes earlier, intermediate school started five minutes earlier and elementary schools started five minutes later. This would give buses more time to complete their afternoon routes and avoid getting backup, First Consulting said. 

Other solutions presented by the consulting firm included creating communal bus stops where children could gather to reduce the number of stops and reallocating some of the buses going to the elementary schools to the intermediate school, where they would help eliminate backups. 

Another recommendation is creating an application process to register students who ride the bus. Getting a better idea of how many students using school transportation would help determine route logistics, according to First Consulting.