Extracurricular activities, jobs affected by change in bus route, student says

A high school student has started a petition to reverse changes in school start times in Conception Bay South.

Luke Battcock, a Grade 11 student at Holy Spirit High School, is fighting to save extracurricular activities for younger students that older students help run.

"When they get out before me, they're gone home before I get over there to help run debate clubs," he told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show.

Battcock added that older students help run many after-school programs at the junior high and elementary schools, including choir, robotics and tutoring.

Without high school students helping out, he doesn't see the programs continuing.

Students already losing jobs

"People are losing jobs over this as well," he said.

"I know I had one person specifically say to me 'You know I'm babysitting, I was planning tobabysitnext year to save up for college, for university, and I can't do that anymore.' And people are just losing jobs where they have to be at those jobs right after school for after-school programs and stuff like that, and it's really negatively affecting a lot of students and parents."

In March, the English School District announced three schools in Conception Bay South would revise their start and finish times this September to help save money on busing.

The high school is set to start 50 minutes later in the day.

"You get home later, you just don't have as much time in the evenings," Battcock said.

"You still have the same amount of homework [and] all that. Nothing there changes but the time that you have for free time and relaxation, which is obviously important, it just goes away"

The changes are also supposed to help alleviate traffic congestion.

Meeting with the school board

Battcock said he's gotten a lot of support online for his petition from both students and parents. He said some parents are upset because their older children will no longer be home in the afternoons to babysit younger siblings.

"And we know that there's not a lot of free money in the province right now with things economically the way they are, and a lot of people don't have the free spending money for what amounts to costly childcare when older students can't take care of the younger ones," Battcock said.

Battcock has arranged a meeting for June 20 with the school board to lay out his arguments and present the petition.

He said there is an easy fix that should appease both the board and students;have high school start earlier and the younger grades start later, instead of the other way around.

"They can still have their benefits that they've proposed and we can keep our extracurriculars and things like that going, because those are very important to students," Battcock said.