Parents of 4,800 Cherry Creek students are planning new ways to get their children to school starting today.
In a move that will save the district $1.8 million, for the first time in 10 years school start and end times have been rearranged, and walking distance for all middle schools and high schools has risen by a half mile.
The changes mean fewer students will ride the bus and bus- driver positions will be cut, with some of them replaced by school-building employees trained to drive a route before their other work begins. The remaining drivers will run more routes with fewer stops.
While parents are frustrated with the changes, many said they are trying to keep in mind that these cuts are better than cuts in the classroom.
“It’s a shame we don’t have bus service anymore. Starting Monday, we will carpool with four families from the area,” said Bonnie Post, a mother of a third- grader at Cottonwood Creek Elementary and a seventh-grader at Campus Middle School.
Post lives 1.47 miles from her son’s middle school, which means he will no longer ride the bus. Post said she would not mind having her son walk or ride a bike to school but knows that with the weather that won’t always be possible.
The Post family will also pay for before-school care for their third-grader since the elementary school will start at 9 a.m., an hour later than the middle school.
“We’re being faced with budget cuts is the reality. This is helping to divert essential funds without affecting the classrooms as much,” said Vickie Sulmeisters, chairwoman for the Parent Information Network.
“That’s the understanding most parents are trying to grapple with,” Sulmeisters said.
Surveys conducted at town- hall meetings before the changes were approved show that 94.5 percent of parents and community members think teacher quality is a top priority.
Almost half of respondents also said they preferred to make these distance and time changes instead of having to cut money for teaching.
Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the district, said the changes will save increasingly more money in following years.
Without the changes, the district calculates it would have spent about $5 million over the next three to five years on replacing and maintaining its bus fleet.
Facing a $17.7 million cut in state aid, Cherry Creek made cuts to all departments.
Still, class sizes will stay the same, schools will get new equipment, and the changes in walking distance still keep Cherry Creek schools among the shortest distances for districts in the area, Amole said.
Cherry Creek’s new walking distance is 1.5 miles for middle school and 2 miles for high school, compared with Denver Public Schools’ 2.5 miles for middle school and 3.5 miles for high school.
Yesenia Robles: yrobles@denverpost.com
