Milford School Committee Mulls Moving School Start Time

MILFORD, MA — High and middle school students could get some extra sleep as Milford's School Committee goes over the possibility of pushing start times back to 8:30 a.m. While nothing is set in stone yet, any change would have to wait a year for implementation. The School Committee has already been studying the issue, which has come up in districts across the state, for over a year.

Delays in school start times have been discussed in neighboring communities like Newton, Ashland and Wayland — citing later start times give students an adequate amount of sleep to function for the rest of the day.

Two options were proposed at last week's School Committee meeting.

The first would move the high school start time from 7:50 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and Stacey Middle School from 7:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. as well. Both schools would dismiss at 3 p.m. Woodland Elementary School students would start at 9 a.m. instead of 8:25 a.m. and dismissing at 3:15 p.m. Brookside Elementary would start at 9:20 a.m. instead of 8:40 a.m. and dismiss at 3:30 p.m.

The second option would start both the middle and high school times at 8:30 a.m. and end them at 3 p.m. Woodland Elementary would start at 7:50 a.m. and end at 2:05 p.m. Brookside would start at 8 a.m. and end at 2:10 p.m.

Assistant Superintendent Craig Consigli explained concern about later start times affecting after school sports, extra curricular activities and teacher contracts. He also mentioned the shift affecting traffic in town and childcare for parents. "I see this as something that, over the next ten years, will kind of be the norm," Consigli said.

Any potential change would be implemented in the 2020-21 school year.

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