One goal of the Five-Year Strategic Plan of Putnam City Schools is “to create an inclusive and collaborative culture.” This means that the District is committed to including the voices of all stakeholders, ensuring it is common practice to seek feedback from employees, families, and the local community to influence decision-making.

With a major decision such as changing the start-stop times for the District, it was a critical step in the process to provide opportunities for feedback and we placed high regard for all of the input we received. In short, the results are in and we listened! To give a brief overview, the combined results of the surveys from the staff and the community showed that many were positive or “okay” with the proposed change. However, the surveys also revealed that there were still some issues that needed to be considered, addressed, and resolved before a major change to the school times could effectively be  implemented. With that, we announce the new school start-stop times for the 2024-2025 school year.  

 In consideration of the feedback we received and to provide an explanation and transparency for the school start-stop time changes, we will briefly outline the issues that were addressed, and highlight the resolutions and the benefits of these changes. 

•  Students will benefit from being in school during periods of highest learning and retention abilities for their age/development stage.

•  A later start time for adolescents has shown to improve attendance and academic achievement.

•  Access to high-quality extracurriculars remains consistent at all levels, K-12.

•  Elementary school doors will open at 7:30 am, with school starting at 8:00 am, to align with parents’ work schedules.

• Increased access to district childcare.

• The middle school schedule still allows older students to be available to care for younger elementary siblings after school.

• High school students will be released with time to accommodate after-school work schedules, extracurriculars, fine arts, and athletics.

• More efficiency for District-provided transportation services.

• More efficient/lower overall operating costs for the District.

Above all, we are very proud of our employees, families, and community for constructively and honestly providing feedback to inform this decision and to continue to allow Putnam City Schools to “Go Boldly.” Further, we appreciate the diligent work of the committee and all those who worked on this critical project. Putnam City Schools’ vision maintains that we will serve our students through innovation and excellence for success in life and by continuously working together with our stakeholders to implement informed changes, we know this vision remains strong.

-Putnam City Schools Administration