Cars lined the parking lot of Sonny Carter Elementary Wednesday with parents waiting for school to get out.
One parent, Takeyma Willis, says, "I had to arrive early. I got here at two o'clock."
Other parents agreed, saying they would rather wait in the heat than have their kids wait long to be picked up.
Policies for student pick-pu at the school changed this year. According to the student handbook, elementary kids are dismissed at 3:45 in the afternoon. Bibb county schools Director of Risk Management, David Gowan, encourages parents to stagger their arrivals.
He says, "This system is designed to make sure kids are personally delivered to their vehicle, to their bus so that we don't have pedestrian traffic in the parking lot."
Some parents say they were blind-sided when they found out that they couldn't go inside the school to pick up their children.
Willis says, "They stuck a new part onto the school. They don't want to have walk-ins to sign your kids out anymore, and there's nothing in the handbook saying you can't sign them out anymore."
All of the changes are spelled out in the student handbook. Now, the only option for both students and parents is to wait in the carpool lane or use the bus.
The school is filled with almost 600 students. The last student was picked up Wednesday at 4:26. Tuesday's time was 4:53.