Oct. 12, 2023 ~ On Tuesday, Oct. 10, Olathe Public Schools hosted more than 125 parents, teachers, administrators, certified and classified staff members at the final committee meetings this fall as we continue our work to identify modified start/end times for the 2024-25 school year. Read the first committee meeting recap and the second committee meeting recap.

As a reminder, these committees are representative of the district’s three grade levels (early childhood/elementary, middle and high school) and have been tasked with reviewing new start/end time schedule options, assessing survey feedback and diving into the challenges and opportunities each schedule presents to help identify a schedule recommendation and implementation plan to present to the Board of Education for consideration this semester.

This meeting reviewed data about field trips and potential field trip availability, hypothetical contract hours, further broke down both parent and staff survey by school level and talked about next steps. Look at the committee meeting presentations, staff, family and student survey input, and the main themes in open-ended feedback responses. Our intention in sharing these documents is to maintain transparency and provide accurate information for our entire community.

The next steps are for district administration to review survey data and committee feedback, continue to work with DS Bus lines on routing/number of drivers needed and continue to study both option A and option B’s efficiency and ease for our community. District administration plans to present on the start and end time process and recommend a new schedule for future action at the next Board of Education meeting on Nov. 2. This means that the board could take action to approve during the Dec. 7 Board of Education meeting. 
 
For the latest information and updates on the start/end time process, please visit www.olatheschools.org/startandendtime.