Daylight-Saving Change Poses Tech. Challenges for Schools

Bob Moore has visions of administrators wandering school halls in search of missed meetings, inaccurate time sheets for bus drivers, and personal digital assistants pulsing with incorrect times.

As the executive director of information technology for Blue Valley Unified School District #229 in Overland Park, Kan., it’s Mr. Moore’s job to worry about what will happen when daylight-saving time hits at 2 a.m. on March 11—three weeks earlier than it has for the past 20 years.

A little-discussed action nearly two years ago by federal lawmakers in Washington is having a ripple effect across the country now as school districts’ information-technology staffs, like those in businesses and in other agencies, scramble to update computers programmed to adjust for daylight-saving time on the first Sunday in April. In 2005, as an energy-conservation move, Congress lengthened daylight-saving time by four weeks. It moved the date to “spring forward” ahead by three weeks and delayed the date to “fall back” by one week, from the last Sunday in...