Oahu Interscholastic Association football and girls volleyball games will start a half-hour earlier, beginning next week.

Starting Sept. 12, junior varsity football games will begin at 5:30 p.m. instead of 6, with varsity games to follow. Volleyball matches will start at 5:30 as well, beginning Monday.

The league received complaints that football games were ending too late, with some running until near midnight. That got student-athletes and their families home in the wee hours of the morning in some cases.

"Games were ending so late, so we’re trying to make it easier for the players and their families," said Harold Tanaka, the OIA’s football coordinator. "Football is a different game now. It lasts a lot longer than it used to. We don’t want the kids to have to take that long bus ride home so late at night. We want to get them home earlier and safely."

The JV kickoffs for Saturday games will remain at 4 p.m.

The 5:30 Friday start time is something of a compromise. For years, JV games started at 5 p.m., but changes in school and bus scheduling prompted the switch this season.

Oahu’s public schools are getting out later this year. For instance, Mililani High School let out at 1:40 p.m. most days a year ago, and now the dismissal time on some days, including Fridays, is 2:27 p.m.

Also, the number of bus services contracted by the Department of Education was reduced to two from four, Kalani athletic director Greg Van Cantfort said.

And that caused a problem for the bus services, making it virtually impossible to shuttle children home after school and then be available to get football teams to their destinations in time for a 5 p.m. kickoff.

As a result, varsity games have been starting and ending a lot later. Last Friday in Waianae, for example, the varsity game began at 9:05 p.m. and ended at 11:55. After the postgame handshakes and the time it took for players and coaches to get on the bus, the Leilehua team didn’t start its trip home to Wahiawa 30 miles away until after midnight.

After three weeks of this new system and the problems it was causing, the ADs realized the need to revisit it.

"Now that the schools have been through it for a few weeks, the ADs explored options of what earlier time might work," Van Cantfort said.

After discussions with school principals and the bus companies, the decision for the half-hour time change was finalized.

Other start-time options will be explored in the summer, Tanaka said.

The idea of moving JV games to Saturdays was discussed, but Tanaka said that option is not popular.

"That would be taxing on the schools and all the people who work at the games — for them to be there Friday night and again on Saturday," Tanaka said. "That is just asking too much from them."