Page Kimzey
Audio Editor
Webster Groves School District will consider the start of using a late start program for inclimate weather, rather than calling a snow day.
This new schedule has all schools starting an hour and 15 minutes later. Students will arrive at this time, and staff will arrive 30 minutes earlier than that.
The WGSD website indicates that WGHS will start at 9:10 a.m., Hixson at 9:50 a.m., Steger and Computer School at 9:05 a.m., Avery, Bristol, and Hudson at 9:35 a.m., Clark and Edgar Road at 9:45 a.m., Ambrose Family Preschool at 8:30 a.m.
By doing this, WGSD will not have to tack on extra days at the end of the school year to make up for the snow days that aren’t covered by the four built-in snow days. Starting at a later time will allow Webster’s Street Department to go through a majority of the streets to clear them enough for the students to arrive at school safely.
Although this is the safest option for WGSD students, this can also be problematic. Some students who either live outside of the district or simply do not live close to their schools depend on parents, siblings, etc to get to school everyday. By having school start at a later time, those who provide those rides not be able to wait an hour later to drive students to school. Since the schools will not allow students to arrive more than 30 minutes before the starting time, this can cause many problems for those students.
This late start program will also affect the future Statesmen who currently attend the Statesmen Preschool. Since the preschool follows the high school schedule, it gets snow days when the high school gets snow days, but this will not be the case for late start schedules because it will be an inconvenience for the parents of the preschoolers.
On the days of the late start, preschool director Diane Stromberg will not have students to help her watch the preschoolers who arrive at 9 a.m., before school starts, “If we start with first hour, I won’t have any students,” Stromberg said.
Stromberg only has classes from second to fifth hour meaning that students who usually arrive at 9 a.m. to watch the preschoolers, will be in other classes and unable to help out.
“I would try to pull kids out of academic lab first hour,” Stromberg said.
Stromberg will rely on some teachers will allow their first hour students to go to the preschool to help out.
“I think a lot of my students too, if they aren’t doing anything in their first hour classes, especially the advanced kids would recognize what is happening and try to get out of their class to come help,” Stromberg said.
For more information about the late start program check any WGSD school’s website.
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