Aug. 11--Following complaints from students, parents and educators about new school day schedules, Chicago Public Schools has scaled back its plan to change bell times at 82 schools.
The district will stick to its original plan for new start and finish times at 40 schools, while eight other schools will shift to an alternative of what was initially proposed. Thirty-four schools will go back to their original bell times.
The changes initially announced in several cases shifted the start and end of the school day by an hour or more. District officials said the original plan would have saved about $9 million in transportation costs. By scaling back, those savings are down to $5 million, the district said.
CPS says it is one of only a handful of large districts that doesn't stagger elementary and high school start times, and because of that its transportation costs are far higher than at other large, urban districts.
Most of the district's more than 600 schools will remain on the same bell times as last year.
jjperez@tribpub.com
