Maricopa Wells schedule to change on Monday

Maricopa Wells Middle School will change its schedule by 20 minutes on Monday to help eliminate a long wait for buses that was creating discipline problems after school.

The new schedule will feature a start time of 8:50 a.m. and a release time of 3:56 p.m. Principal Stephanie Sharp said at the new release time, the buses will be lined up and ready for students to board. It will not only help eliminate wait time but will also become a more routine system as the busses will be able to line up in order and the students will go to the same place every day.

Because of some shared buses for Maricopa High School and Wells Sharp said some student will still arrive before 8:30 a.m. but a morning program is in place and the students will be ushered to the cafeteria where they can eat breakfast, work on homework, or participate in the activity.

Sharp said with the current release time students were waiting up to 20 minutes before the buses arrived which provided time for discipline issues to arise. Corporal Kent Ogard who is an officer on Maricopa campuses said one of the main issues stemmed from the high school and junior high getting out of school at the same time.

This resulted in Wells students partaking in activities appropriate for high school students but not junior high. With the change junior high students will be released after high school students have already had time to walk past Wells on their way home.

With this change, Sharp said the students will actually spend an estimated 40 minutes less on campus every day. She also noted that teacher’s schedules will not be greatly affected as their school day will now start and end 15 minutes later than before.

One drawback to the change is for the students involved in sports at the school. On game days those students will have to miss 20 extra minutes of class when traveling to another school. Sharp noted that this issue was taken into consideration but the positive results outweighed the negative.

The new schedule will take effect Feb. 18. Sharp told said students and parents will be provided with several communications to avoid confusion.

The motion passed 3-1. Board member Tracy Davis voted against the change and Jim Chaston was absent.