Vote On Later Start Time For Burlington High School Looming

The Burlington School Committee is considering a proposal to push back high school start times to as late as 8:30 am from 7:30 a.m. If approved, the move would take affect during the 2018-19 school year. The proposal comes as a growing body of research shows that teenagers get only 6 to 6.5 hours of sleep per night when experts recommend eight to 10 hours per night for adolescents.

The board will consider the proposal at its meeting on Oct. 24. School officials also plan to conduct informational meetings with staff members and parents at each school in the district in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 24 meeting.

The current proposal would leave start times for middle school students unchanged. To accommodate busing schedules, the board would also need to approve a change to have elementary school students start their day earlier. Those students start their day at 8:10 or 8:35, depending on which school they attend and finish at 2:15 or 2:40 pm.

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Proposals like the one Burlington is considering come as researchers increasingly find that shifts in sleep patterns during adolescence make it harder for teens to fall asleep as early as adults and younger children. Later school start times for high school and middle school students have been shown to increase academic performance. The National Sleep Foundation also notes a link between early high school start times and higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems such as irritability, depression, substance abuse issues, poor impulse control and violence

Such changes, however, don't come without hardship. While Burlington has already worked out agreements with other schools to accommodate high school sports schedules, changes in school start times can be difficult on families that rely on older children to watch their younger siblings after school. Students may find it difficult to find time for after school jobs or extracurricular activities that are not school sanctioned because of the later dismissal time. The later start times can also upend the schedules of parents who want to get their kids off to school before they themselves have to get to work.

School Committee Member Martha Simon, who has not decided how she will vote on the proposal, said she hopes that the fact the school committee will consider the proposal nearly a year before the rule change would be implemented would give families time to plan around those scheduling hiccups. She also hopes the October 24 meeting and the information sessions leading up to it will give parents and school staff members a chance to voice concerns and issues the school committee may not have considered.

School districts in 19 states implemented later start times for this school year, according to USA Today. Meanwhile, California is considering a bill that would make it illegal for schools to start before 8:30 a.m. Still, like Burlington High School, about one out of every 10 schools in the U.S. has a start time before 7:30 a.m.

Photo of Burlington High School by John Phelan via WikiMedia Commons.