School starts early at Berylwood
By Miguel Morales miguel@theacorn.com

New school schedules will be in effect next week when the fall semester begins at Wood Ranch and Berylwood elementary schools.

At a Simi Valley Unified School District board meeting earlier this month, schedule changes were approved for the 200708 school year, which begins Wednesday, Aug. 29.

At Berylwood all classes- kindergarten through sixth- will begin at 8 a.m., which is 15 minutes earlier than last year. The school day will end at 12:32 p.m. for kindergarten, at 1:54 p.m. for grades one through three and at 2:26 p.m. for grades four through six.

Deborah R. Riley, the new principal at Berylwood, said she was happy to be starting off her first semester at a new school with the same starting times as Lincoln Elementary, where she was the principal last year.

Wood Ranch will combine its morning and afternoon kindergarten classes in one extended class from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. No other schedule changes were made.

The extended kindergarten class will offer students a greater number of activities and lessons than was possible in the previous three-hour classes, according to a member of Wood Ranch's office staff.

All but four elementary schools in Simi offer extended kindergarten classes.

According to Rob Collins, clerk of the school board, many factors can influence a change in a school's schedule.

Transportation, for example, plays a major role in determining what times schools start and end. Bus schedules are an important part of these changes, he said.

John Burns, director of student safety and transit, said that transportation can make or break a school's plans to change its start or end times.

Principals must allow sufficient time, usually 20 to 30 minutes, for picking up students along its route and dropping them off at school, he said. That usually precludes elementary schools from starting any earlier than 8 a.m.

"We work alongside the schools to accommodate their needs, but we are mostly concerned with getting students to school on time," Burns said.