General
Q. What’s changing?
Alberta Education’s School Transportation Amendment Regulation changes the transportation eligibility distance and how it is calculated. The travel distance (1.6 km for K-6 or 2 km for grades 7-12) must now be calculated by the driving distance from a student’s home to the front door of the school. In the past, CBE calculated the shortest walking distance from your house to any corner of the school property. This means that many more students will become eligible to take the bus and that all walk zones across schools will look significantly different starting next school year.
Q. What’s the overall goal of these changes?
The overall goal is a reliable transportation system, ensuring more than 60,000 CBE students can get to school safely, on time and ready to learn.
We recognize that change brings challenges, and we appreciate the role each of you will play in supporting our students and school communities through this transition.
Bell Times
Q. Why are bell times at some schools being adjusted for fall 2025?
This change is necessary due to the addition of numerous bus routes required to align with Alberta Education’s School Transportation Amendment Regulation. When changes are made to yellow bus transportation, it has an impact on bell times for schools. That’s because bell times are directly connected to transportation.
The bell time changes will also help accommodate increased travel times in a growing city and to ensure students receive all the required instructional hours.
Aligning bell times across schools makes transportation more efficient, allowing each bus to run multiple routes. This creates a reliable transportation system, ensuring students get to school safely, on time and ready to learn.
Q. Will bell times change each year?
Generally, school bell times are expected to remain consistent each year. From time to time, adjustments may be needed based on instructional scheduling, program changes, traffic patterns and other factors.
Q. What factors were considered as part of the bell time adjustments?
- Student well-being (ensuring adequate time for lunch and recess)
- Meeting the Alberta Education prescribed requirements for hours of instruction per school year
- Start and end times
- Feeder schools within an attendance area
- Size of each school and/or program attendance area
- Traffic patterns across the city
- Total travel time to/from school
- Calgary Transit routes and scheduling
Q. How will my child’s lunch hour be affected by bell time changes?
Changes to a school’s start and end times may affect the time available for lunch. As part of the bell time adjustments, it was important to consider student well-being and ensure each school had adequate time for breaks such as lunch and recess.
The setting of specific lunch times is at the principal’s discretion on a school-by-school basis.
Q. Why is my early dismissal time changing?
Bell times, including start, dismissal, and early dismissal day Fridays are tied to transportation schedules and instructional hours.
Q. How will bell time changes affect the scheduling of classes at my child’s school? Will instructional hours be affected?
Alberta Education sets mandatory hours of instruction. Students require 950 hours of instruction for elementary though junior high school students, and 1000 hours for high school students. The bell times, including start, dismissal, and early dismissal day Fridays are set at the system level and are tied to transportation schedules. In advance of these changes, school bell time adjustments were reviewed to ensure that schools are able to meet the Alberta Education prescribed requirements for hours of instruction per school year while taking into account student non-instructional times like lunch and recess.
At the school level, the principal works within the bell times to develop a timetable that accounts for the hours of instruction required, suitable breaks for lunch and recess, and any other non-instructional times during the school day. If you have any further questions regarding the impact of the bell times on your specific school's instruction hours, please connect with your principal.
Q. When can I drop my child off at school in the morning?
Drop off time and morning supervision schedule can differ from school to school. Your principal will provide more information before the start of the school year.
Students must be supervised by their parent or caregiver if they arrive outside of supervision times.
Q. What is the earliest possible start time and latest possible end time for the school day?
The general guideline is that the school day will not start before 8 AM and end no later than 4 PM.
Typically, middle school and high schools have later bell times. When balancing all the factors, there are some schools outside of these bell time parameters.
Q. What time do students begin busing each day?
Working within the guidelines of school hours between 8 AM – 4 PM, we aim to have most students begin busing after 7 AM to ensure we can create a reliable transportation system, ensuring students get to school safely, on time and ready to learn.
Q. Will earlier start times have a negative impact on student learning?
Many CBE schools already have early start times, with no identified negative impact on student learning.
The goal is for buses to begin no earlier than 7 AM though some specialized programs may require an earlier start.
Q. How will bell time changes affect before and after school care programs in my child’s school?
Before and after school care programs that are housed within CBE schools may need to adjust their schedules to meet the earlier or later arrival or dismissal of students.
Before and after school care programs received communication with the updated times this spring.
Q. Will school-based extracurricular activities be impacted?
The change in bell times should not affect school-based extracurricular activities.
Extracurricular activities depend on staff availability, skill set and interest and may vary from year-to-year. These decisions are made by school staff at the beginning of the school year and once determined, will be communicated to each unique school community.
Q. If the new bell time schedule conflicts with my family’s schedule is there an opportunity to transfer to a different school?
We respect that parents will make the decisions they feel are best for their children in response to these changes, and we are committed to supporting families through this process.
You can read more about the transfer process on the
CBE website.
Q. Was consideration given to aligning transportation and bell times between feeder schools?
Where possible, the CBE tries to align the elementary and middle school’s bell times and transportation services. Unfortunately, that is not always possible given route planning across over 250 schools.
Q. Why were families not consulted about the change in bell times?
The changes to bell times and transportation services were in response to provincial legislation that comes into effect on Sept. 1, 2025.
The CBE is commitment to community engagement and where possible, families should be involved in decisions that affect them. Unfortunately, it was not possible to provide that opportunity on bell times. There were many factors to balance including instructional hours, feeder school impacts, school start and end times, and collective agreement considerations alongside broader changes to transportation services.
