(Photo by Matthew Casey - KJZZ)

Officials explain to parents a plan to temporarily move students from Challenger and Landmark schools to other campuses in the Glendale Elementary School District. Kids will attend half-classes for several weeks starting Thursday.

About 3,000 students in the Glendale Elementary School District will attend half-days while crews repair buildings on two campuses.

Challenger and Landmark elementary schools will stay shuttered for up to five weeks.

Officials said they explored several options before deciding to move kids to other campuses within the district. Students from Challenger, Landmark, Bicentennial North and Desert Spirit schools will start split-schedules on Thursday.

Kids will still have the same teachers, said Jim Cummings, a district spokesman.

“What is going to change is we’re going to condense the schedules,” Cummings said. “Some of what we call specials, that would be like P.E., computer class, art, music that type of stuff, we’re probably not going to be able to get to that during this five-week period.”

The district held several meetings with parents Monday to explain logistics and answer questions.

“I’m worried the kids level of study will drop because they’ll only go to school four hours a day, when they had been going longer,” Glendy Borbolla said in Spanish after a meeting. Her son goes to Landmark.

Steel reinforcements inside the walls at Challenger and Landmark have disintegrated to the point where engineers could not sign off on the safety of students, faculty and staff, according to district officials. Both schools are about 30 years old.

The Arizona School Facilities Board has approved $2.4 million for repairs, and work should start next week.

“I don’t feel that it’s going to make it permanently safe,” said Robert Metcalf, whose son goes to Challenger. “It’s a temporary patch.”

Three of the four schools affected are in state Sen. Martín Quezada’s district. He was at one of the meetings and said parents are shocked.

“Many of them are working one, two jobs,” Quezada said. “They’ve got multiple kids, different ages, going to different schools. And to have to readjust their entire schedule to accommodate this is really frustrating for them. And they have a lot of questions.”