Westlake High School to Start Half Hour Later This Year

students get to sleep in half an hour longer this school year. Classes will be starting at 7:55 a.m. instead of 7:25 a.m.

Superintendent Dan Keenan said administrators have been looking at a later start time for kids for several years, but were unable. The change was made this year since the district

“We started looking back at reasons for making it early,” said Superintendent Dan Keenan. “They were structural, and once busing was out of the picture, we started to look at priorities. There are pros and cons of doing it both ways, but this supported a lot of things we’re trying to do.”

The district’s Community Advisory Committee did a study that showed advantages to a later start time, but between running buses to the elementary and middle schools caused scheduling problems.

“This allows a lot of kids to do after school activities when they had conflicts,” Keenan said.

The high school will also have a zero period now, which was prohibited by the early start time in years past.

“This also allows a more cohesive ability to meet with staff,” Keenan said. “We did that after school, but at the high school it’s harder because the staff is so involved in co-curricular and extracurricular activities.”

Parents will not need to worry about dropping kids off in time for work though. The building will be open for students at the same time in the morning.

Keenan said the start time might change again in two years under the new state budget.

“Let’s see how it works,” he said. “If [busing] comes back we’ll have to reevaluate. We want to consider bringing that back very seriously. We just don’t have the ability to do that now.”