MALONE — The school day for Malone Central School District students will change by about 10 minutes, and bus runs will streamlined under a new plan.
The start time for all elementary students will be 8 a.m., and release time will be 2:30 p.m.
Middle School students will begin at 7:30 a.m., with the first class starting at 7:43 a.m. and the last one ending at 2:20 p.m.
High-school classes at Franklin Academy will start at 7:45 a.m., with the first period beginning at 7:56 a.m., and dismissal is at 2:12 p.m.
High-school classes used to begin at 8:08 a.m.
There will be no formal Latch Key program in the mornings, but elementary students are allowed in the building after 7 a.m., with rotating staff present to supervise them, said Assistant Superintendent Jerry Griffin.
The afterschool Latch Key program is expected to operate as usual, he said.
The change in start times coincides with the reconfiguration of elementary students and their building assignments, as well as improved bus runs as part of a $29 million reconstruction and renovation project.
“We’ve made the transportation more efficient, where the buses, after their last pickup, will head out for their neighborhood zone,” said Griffin.
For example, a bus with its last stop at St. Joseph’s Elementary School would first pick up high-school-age kids and middle-school kids from the same residential zone and taken them to their homes in places north of Malone, such as Constable and Trout River.
Those kids from the Bangor area and other points west would be on the Davis Elementary zone bus, and the kids to the south would be on the bus for the Flanders Elementary School attendance zone, Griffin said.
“All of the buses will go to the High School and Middle School but only one elementary school,” he said.
“Not that it was done for that reason, but we think it will reduce traffic in the village in the afternoons.”
He said discussions are still under way on transportation for students at Holy Family School, where kids may be shuttled to the Middle School then get on their neighborhood-zone bus.
Details and maps about the reconfiguration are available on the district’s website: malonecsd.org.
Email Denise A. Raymo: draymo@pressrepublican.com
