Dear Wildcat Community, 

Over the past few years, our school district has pursued the opportunity to re-evaluate the needs of our students, explore best practices that support classroom-learning environments and develop strategies that foster greater academic achievement from students. We are excited to share with you two important recommendations the administration plans to make to our Board of School Directors during our Working Session on Monday, January 8, 2024.

After careful consideration, we plan to recommend to our School Board that we begin the transition to push back our school start times and dismissals for the 2024-2025 school year. In addition, we plan to recommend to our School Board that we proceed with the implementation of Full Day Kindergarten beginning with the 2025-2026 school year. 

Please note that Monday’s Working Session is for the administration to present their recommendations to the Board of School Directors for consideration, and for School Directors to consider a potential vote on the recommendations at their Regular Voting Meeting on Monday, January 22, 2024.

As part of the proposal to change school start times, we are recommending that instruction at the high school and middle school begin at 8 a.m. and end at 2:45 p.m. In addition, we are recommending that elementary schools begin their day at 8:50 a.m. and dismiss at 3:30 p.m.

As part of the recommendation, elementary schools will hold their morning half-day kindergarten programs from 8:50 a.m. until 11:35 a.m.., while afternoon kindergarten programs will run from 12:35 p.m. until 3:30 p.m.

The decision to move forward with changes to our school start times is based, in-part, on our district’s ability to hire school bus drivers to serve the transportation needs of our community. As you may recall, OJR faced a severe shortage of bus drivers at the time and any proposed school start time change would require additional drivers. However, we previously shared with our community the intention to continue pursuing a path toward later school start times for students as the district prioritized addressing our bus driver shortages.

We are happy to report the Transportation Department provided an update on school bus driver staffing at the November 13, 2023 Working Session of the Board of School Directors. During the meeting, it was announced that as a result of recruitment efforts, OJR is now fully-staffed with 90 buses with full-time drivers, 3 full-time office staff, and 1 full-time lot mechanic. In addition, the budget allows for 4 additional buses which were added on January 2, 2024. The addition of 4 buses to OJR's service fleet will help to reduce ride times for students, help to reduce load counts on our buses, and enable buses to arrive earlier to the Elementary School Line-Up - making for a smoother, quicker dismissal. The presentation can be viewed online by clicking here. 

Regarding the implementation of Full Day Kindergarten in our schools, we believe our community has been clear in their desire to see Owen J. Roberts pursue this course of action and to have our schools provide educational opportunities that align with those already being offered in neighboring school districts in Chester County and the surrounding region. 

After assessing our classroom capacities and facility capabilities, we believe we can effectively implement Full Day Kindergarten across our district in a timely and efficient manner, and with minor disruptions to our learning environments. We’re excited to expand OJR’s kindergarten program and we look forward to sharing additional details with our community in the future.

We are confident these transitions are in the best interest of students. In the coming months, we will share additional information about these changes, particularly regarding school start times, and provide plenty of time for families to make adjustments to their schedule ahead of the start of the school year in late-August. For now, please visit our School Start Time portal, available on our website, and consider reading the Question & Answer document we’ve compiled based on feedback we’ve received from parents, teachers, students and the community. 

Thank you once again for your patience, feedback and participation in this important process. We want to especially thank the students, parents, staff, and community members who served on the school start time committee and assisted us in this valuable work. We also want to thank every member of our community who has taken the time to attend our listening sessions and town hall meetings, and everyone who has emailed me their thoughts and ideas on these crucial topics.

I look forward to your ongoing partnership and support of our students as we continue to enjoy an amazing school year. 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Will Stout

Superintendent

Owen J. Roberts School District