School Committee Unanimously Approves New School Start Times

Plans to make schools start later in the morning received a passing grade from the School Committee Thursday night.

After months of planning and some delay, the committee unanimously voted to approve Superintendent Chris Hottel's compromise proposal, , to change the school start times across all age groups.

"It's amazing when, if there's enough input, how the community can come together and come up with a solution," committee member Chris Nobile said.

Get Some Sleep, Kids

The move is based on research that has suggests that adolescents and teens need more sleep than other age groups and that more sleep helps them concentrate better in school. Elementary schools would have to be adjusted as well, to fit bus schedule changes.

"Twenty minutes would provide what is reported to be a very important thing for high school students; to not just get more sleep, but also to be awake when they're in their first period classes," Hottel said.

Starting next school year, and will start 20 minutes and 25 minutes later, respectively, than they do now. The elementary schools will start 10 minutes later than they do now. And that time would be added to the end of the day, changing what time kids leave school as well.

"As a Thomson parent, we had this schedule last year," member Laurie Burzlaff said. "We didn't have any input then. We were told that this was how it was going to be. But it was fine, and we didn't have any complaints about it. I think the additional 10 minutes its really not going to be a big factor."

Bumps in the Road

The original proposal set forth by the superintendent's School Start Times Advisory Committee was to have the high school start 35 minutes later than it does now, the middle school start time not change and the elementary schools start 20 minutes later.

This plan infuriated many parents as well as school transportation officials. So the School Committee decided on Dec. 2 to table the vote until more discussion could take place and some changes made.

"The letters we've seen have been all over the place," Vice Chair Christine Allen said, commenting on the varying opinions, for and against the plan, from the public and various departments. "I think you could pick any topic and any angle on this, and we got letters on topics of every single area."

So Hottel came back this week with a new compromise proposal, cutting the start time changes and including the middle school to start later with the high school.

"I was particularly pleased with how the middle school students were considered in this proposal," said committee member Karin Rhoton. "The research says 'adolescents.' And middle school kids are adolescents too. I'm glad that, although it's not a perfect solution, it's a solution that addresses all the age groups, grades kindergarten to 12^th  grade."

The committee also noted that this plan is not expected to be a final say on start times and that there may have to be adjustments in coming years. Hottel plans to enlist a committee to monitor how the new schedule works out.

School Start Time and End Time Changes