How does two Spring Breaks sound? I would have thought they had already optimized busing ...

Schedule changes may help budgeting - Examiner, 03/05/09:

The district could reduce its energy costs by closing all schools and offices for one week in February.

The main offices in all three schools could also close one day each week in the summer of 2009 to reduce energy costs.

The telecommunication cost reductions would come as a result of the district going to Voiceover¹ Internet Protocol for a full year

The administration originally proposed reducing transportation costs by outsourcing the middle school bus runs.

The second transportation plan proposes using district buses for all high school, middle school, elementary school and primary school runs. This plan would require changing the elementary school start and finish times to 8:55 a.m. and 3:35 p.m. Primary school start and finish times would be 9:05 a.m. and 3:45 p.m.

Last week at a reading of Hop On Pop by my son's 1^st grade class (no, I'm not impressed by that!), the parents who live in the next-town-over were discussing which elementary school their children would be at based on neighborhood ... and what times their kids might be getting on the bus.

There were the customary complains about later pickup-times clashing with parents getting to work. But, even if the schedule works out one year, there's nothing to say the schedule won't change the next year, as Millstone has repeatedly shown.

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¹ "Voice-over" or "Voice over"?