With the St. Paul school district slated to alter its start times, one city department is scrambling to tackle dramatic shifts in nearly all its programs. And they’ve got less than a year to do it.

“They’re our bread and butter,” city parks and recreation deputy director Tom Russell said of the district’s elementary school kids. And many of them will need after-school programming, not to mention day care, an hour earlier next year.

As for high-schoolers, they’ll be free for after-school programming an hour later. And not only do they participate in programs — they staff them.

“Right now, we largely have access to high school students to provide services to elementary students; that’s going to go away, or going to change also,” said parks and recreation director Mike Hahm.

That’s just one of the issues the parks department is hoping to tackle as — over the next several months — officials try to figure out how to finagle the hundreds of hours of programs they offer at their fields and recreation centers every week.

‘NOT A WHOLESALE SHIFT’

Essentially, city officials are looking for ways to not simply push programs back an hour. And then the programs scheduled after that back an hour. And then …

“Nine p.m. is the latest game start time. It could get pushed back to 10 p.m., if we just keep things the way they are,” said recreation services manager Gwen Peterson.

One big hurdle is the reluctance within the parks department to shift programs to the early morning, given the whole point of the district’s decision in the first place.

“Part of the premise of starting the high school kids later is that they don’t succeed when they start earlier,” Hahm said. “There’s likely going to be some programs that go that direction. … Ultimately, it’s going to be up to the schools how they program their athletics. If they program in the morning, we’ll have facilities. But we’re anticipating it will not be a wholesale shift.”

Jackie Turner, the school district’s chief operating officer, said the district is considering scheduling “non-mandatory” programming in the morning, such as “meeting with teachers and some sports practices.”

“Everything that is mandatory, we would keep that to the afternoon,” Turner said.

Given that, parks officials — even at this early stage — are certain of one thing.

“We’re going to definitely have more programs in the afternoon and less programs in the morning, because the demand curve is going to shift,” Hahm said.

The city and school district are paying a consultant, St. Paul-based Visible City, $46,250 to assess how much each of its fields is being used, and gather data on current permits and reservations with both the city and the school district. That assessment is expected within the next two months.

“One of the evident options is to push (programs) back into the night; the other is to look at ‘full utilization.’ … Between the two of us, are we looking at all the fields?” Russell says. “We’ve got two pretty large bureaucracies that maybe don’t talk to each other as well as we want to on field scheduling.”

The “utilization” route would shift programs to underused fields and rec rooms. There is, of course, a caveat.

“The likely solution isn’t also taking programs en masse at one location and moving them all to a different location. That probably also is not going to be successful,” Hahm said.

Over the next two months, the parks department try to get input from residents, “on a site-by-site basis,” as well as coaches and those currently enrolled in programs.

The timeline is tighter than one might expect: Athletics directors typically like to plan a full year in advance. Which means, as of this week, the city’s already on borrowed time.

Turner said the district’s primary concerns with any new parks schedule are aligning child care support, and coordinating field space.

“I’m confident as a community we have assets to be able to respond to this, but it’s going to be a big change,” Hahm said.

Related Articles Metro Transit workers reject contract offer, vote to authorize strike

St. Paul man charged in connection with gang-related drive-by shooting

St. Paul City Council approves $600,000 charge for downtown improvement district

St. Paul schools superintendent gets high marks, but board wants progress on equity, enrollment, student achievement

St. Paul district reports enrollment drop as pandemic moves school online Come 2019, with few exceptions, middle and high schools will start at 8:30 a.m., an hour later than this school year. Elementary schools that already start at 9:30 a.m. will see no changes, while nearly all of the rest will start at 7:30 a.m. instead of 8:30 a.m.

After decades of on-and-off discussions, the school board voted in December 2016 to change start times in 2018. Then in October, the board voted to postpone that move until the following year.