Melrose Schools to Delay Late Start Time

Melrose Public Schools will delay any changing of school start times by one year to Fall 2018, Superintendent Cyndy Taymore said in a statement Wednesday.

The reason, according to Taymore, is to buy time in order to make a more educated choice in such an important move.

• Subscribe to Melrose Patch for local news alerts and newsletters

Here is the statement:

“Dear Families,

The process by which the Melrose Public Schools changes its school start times is a deliberate and delicate one. In order to have a successful transition to a later start time for our secondary schools and earlier start time for our elementary schools, we must ensure that there are no questions left unanswered or logistical challenges left unmet.

As we began to address questions raised by the hard-working members of the Late Start Task Force, we realized that to make this process a success, we needed to allocate more time to the process.

Therefore, we are delaying any changes to school start time by one year, to Fall 2018.

The Melrose Education Association and Melrose Public Schools administration are working together and will meet regularly over the next several months to ensure that we have fully planned and communicated our efforts and intentions to parents, faculty, staff and students.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we seek to complete this process as thoroughly as possible.”