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RRPS sets bell schedule for 2023-24 school year
Rio Rancho High School, seen here, and Cleveland High School won’t be thrown into flux when the 2023-24 school year starts; they’ll start and end the school day at the same time as this school year. (File photo)
It’s official – at least for the 2023-24 school year — at Rio Rancho Public Schools.
The four-tier schedule was approved in a 4-0 vote at Monday evening’s meeting on the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education. (Board member Noreen Scott was absent.)
Three options were considered, and staff members, parents and others in the district were surveyed and results – although not scientific – were compiled.
Here’s the schedule for the coming school year, although a legislative committee has been tasked with recommendations for a statutory high school start time before Jan. 1, 2024, and that could change bell times once again in the 2024-25 school year:
- Early elementary schools*: 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
- Late elementary schools: 9:20 a.m. to 3:50 p.m.
- Middle schools: 8:40 a.m. to 3:10 p.m.
- High schools: 7:20 a.m. to 1:50 p.m.
(* Colinas del Norte, Ernest Stapleton and Puesta del Sol only.)
Beth Pendergrass,chief communications, strategy and engagement officer for the district, presented the options and how a “start time committee,” composed of staff members, parents, a union representative, representatives from athletics and fine arts, and board member Jessica Tyler, spent a lot of time in three study sessions going over the myriad challenges, led by transportation considerations.
“It’s a very comprehensive process,” Superintendent Sue Cleveland said.
The district needs four tiers to deliver students to and from schools each day; to resort to three tiers, with all elementary schools starting and ending at the same time, would require 26 more buses.
“It’s impossible to find a solution that makes everyone happy,” Pendergrass said, noting more than 10,000 survey responses came in.
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In light of an expected state-mandated start time for high schools in 2024-25, Tyler said, “We never know what our Legislature will do.”
Nonetheless, House Memorial 56, which directs the legislative education study committee to make the recommendation, notes that 82% of the nation’s high schools start before 8:30 a.m., and 42% begin before 8 a.m. Cleveland and Rio Rancho high schools are in that latter category, with first period at each school starting at 7:20 a.m. and dismissal coming at 2:29 p.m.
