ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – The Roanoke County School District is considering a longer elementary school day--but parents may not need to change their alarms.
The plan will move up the start of elementary school up five minutes to 7:45 a.m. and will move back the end of school five minutes to 2:25 p.m. The Roanoke County School Board is expected to vote on the proposal in their next meeting.
Roanoke County Assistant School Superintendent Dr. Rebecca Eastwood says officials started discussing the change at the beginning of this school year after stretching out some school days last academic year.
"When we had to add the additional time to make up what we needed for school days, people really liked it," Eastwood said. "Teachers didn't feel as rushed to get from one class to the next, they could get everything done that they needed to get done."
The 10Â extra minutes per day would add up to six more makeup or snow days for the school district. Eastwood said they chose to bookend each day with five extra minutes under their plan because that's the only way it would leave all other schedules untouched.
"It would not interfere with breakfast, it would not interfere with the lunch schedule, and it would not interfere with the bus schedule," Eastwood said.
The teacher schedule would also remain unchanged if the plan is approved by the school board.