By Mackenzie Edwards, Sports Editor
Many upperclassmen this year have experienced a heavy flow of traffic in the student parking lot and surrounding areas after school. In some cases, students have arrived home in almost double the amount of time it normally would take them.
The traffic hasn’t been like this in previous years, so why now?
Toward the end of the summer, Dare County Schools came up with a new schedule plan for the 2021-22 school year.
“We held a meeting with the middle and elementary school and central office leadership, and they shared the hurdles and some of the problems regarding transportation with elementary school students and having to run smaller numbers of buses,” Principal Chuck Lansing said.
In the end, hours of operation for First Flight Middle and First Flight High changed.
“The changes are primarily minimal, ranging from five to 18 minutes,” Dare County Schools Superintendent John Farrelly said.
In previous years, FFHS students were going to school for less time than those who went to Manteo High School or Cape Hatteras Secondary School. This was one of many things that sparked the schedule shift. Another major reason for changing the hours was to avoid traffic congestion.
“The focal point of any change at First Flight Schools centers on providing enough time between the three schools to ensure that we are not having too much traffic congestion at drop-off and dismissal,” Farrelly said.
While positive changes such as more instructional time for First Flight high school resulted, other issues also developed.
“The biggest thing that I advocated for was us trying to still get out as early as possible because we have a tremendous impact on instructional time, especially with extracurriculars and athletics because of how far we have to travel for everything,” Lansing said. “My focus is always on time spent in the classroom, and I realize there’s a loss on the back end because of how late we get out now.”
Farrelly addressed this concern as well. Student-athletes have to leave class earlier to travel to away games, causing them to miss out on key instructional time. They are also starting practices 15 minutes later after school each day following last year’s 3:15 release time. FFHS students ended their school day at 3:10 several years ago.
However, there is another prominent issue that many would say needs to be dealt with: the traffic.
“It’s been really bad,” junior Ava Norko said. “I usually have to wait 10 to 15 minutes just to get onto the main highway.”
Without any traffic, it usually takes Norko about 20 minutes to arrive home from school. Now, it can take up to 30 minutes. Other students and drivers in surrounding areas have also faced this problem as parent pickups at the middle school seem to be creating traffic jams with high school students and parents.
Lansing is open to suggestions on how to improve the traffic situation. He wants to understand what the root of this problem is and what could be done to fix it. If any student driver has any concerns about the traffic, please let him know. Lansing can be reached at [email protected].
“I would be willing to hold an open discussion and look at it with maybe a crew of 10 students who feel the same way,” Lansing said. “For us to go out there one afternoon and look, starting at like 3:20 and just observing from 3:20 to 3:35.”
Junior Mackenzie Edwards can be reached at [email protected].
