School Will Start Later in East Greenwich in 2016

The East Greenwich School Committee on Tuesday voted 5-1 for later school start times beginning in the 2016-2017 school year.

The committee also directed Superintendent Victor Mercurio to form an implementation team to iron out kinks and find solutions to practical matters that arise as the district spends the next year planning for the high school and middle school to start at 8 a.m. and the elementary schools to begin at 8:50 a.m.

In the end, the committee opted to settle on ”option 2” — one of several options outlined by the Start School Later ad-hoc committee, which met numerous times over the past year and produced a detailed and comprehensive report.

Option 2 includes a two-tier bus system, which also comes with a price tag of about $150,000.

Committee Member Mary Ellen Winters was the lone vote against the plan and the first committee member to offer up a motion, which failed to get seconded. She recommended that the committee form an implementation team to explore later start times and to “investigate the general and financial implication of the change” including busing, after school activities, athletics and other issues.

Winters’ motion did not offer a timetable for actually implementing later start times, or a specific time to consider.

After that motion died, Committee Member Michael Fain motioned for later 8 a.m. start times at Archie R. Cole Middle School and East Greenwich High School, to be implemented in the 2015-2016 school year.

“I believe there’s going to be some impact, we’ve heard from a lot of people,” Fain said as he made his motion. “Right now we’re talking about a half-hour, which is certainly manageable. Why can’t we get to that this year? To delay this any further is a missed opportunity to help our students be in a better position.”

Fain’s motion would have implemented the ad-hoc committee’s “option 1,” which suggests no additional cost to the district, a 3-tier bus schedule and start times at Frenchtown and Eldredge of 8:45 a.m. and at Meadowbrook and Hanaford it would be 9:25 a.m.

After Fain’s motion failed to get a second, Committee Member David Osborne offered a motion that he said was an attempt to “thread the needle” between the previous motions made by Winters and Fain.

Osborne called for the implementation of option 2, but instead of starting next year, the plan would be to implement later start times the year after next. In the meantime, the district would put together a special team to tackle specific problems that might arise with the new bus schedule, after-school activities and other issues.

At the same time, Osborne’s motion calls for specific guidance from the policy committee to preemptively tackle potential problems, such as people coming to school early for practices and activities, which would defeat the purpose of later start times.

The idea is to “[ensure] that afternoon activities just don’t simply migrate to the morning before school,” Osborne said. “It isn’t just about moving time by a half hour. There are other sorts of issues we heard a lot about . . .as these issues boil up we can discuss them, present them to the School Committee for consideration and perhaps adopt policies to address some of these concerns ahead of time.”

Fain attempted to amend Osborne’s motion to soften the firm 8 a.m. start times at the middle and high schools in an effort to keep the door open for the possibility of an even later start time, if feasible.

But Superintendent Victor Mercurio balked at the suggestion, saying he needs a specific time to work towards as a goal.

“If I’m going to work with an implementation team, I need a target to go to,” Mercurio said, noting that as he plans for different start times, he needs to look at the actual academic day at all of the schools simultaneously. Though each school might feel like an island, there is constant overlap, he said. To see exactly how the new schedule can work, there needs to be a firm, set time in place, he said.

“If I do multiple scenarios, I [might] be repeating what the ad-hoc committee already did and I don’t want to be disrespectful,” Mercurio said.

Fain’s motion to amend did not garner a second, causing it to die on the table.

Along with the later start times and implementation team, the committee directed Mercurio to provide a report by June about the anticipated costs and other logistical issues.

They also will expect regular updates over the course of the next year as the administration begins concrete planning.

Supporters of later start times rejoiced on Tuesday night.

“Celebrations are in order!” said Catherine Rogers, a key supporter of the plan, on the Start School Later East Greenwich Facebook page. “Tonight the School Committee voted to approve a 30 minute change in middle and high school start times beginning in September, 2016! Thank you to our ad hoc committee members Amy Snyder, Katherine Williams, and Carolyn Blackman for their tireless efforts. Thank you to Rebecca Bliss and all the parents and students who kept this issue in the forefront for more than a year. Kudos to Dr. Katie Sharkey and Dr. Mary Carskadon for educating our community about sleep. Thanks to our committee members for courageously taking a stand for our kids.”

School Committee Vice Chairwoman Deidre Gifford did not attend the meeting.

The first early version of this story was posted at 5:30 p.m. It was updated at 6:39 a.m. It could be updated again later today.