Fairfax County School Board Prefers 8 AM Start-Time for High School

High school students in Fairfax County may get more sleep next year but if your child will be in middle school, they may be getting up earlier.

The Fairfax County School Board discussed options and associated costs outlined in the Blueprint for Change proposal for school start times, specifically to change the current 7:30 a.m. start time for high school, at a work session on Monday.

The School Board indicated that the option outlined below is the preferred one, according to a news release from FCPS. Here’s more about the proposal, from the release:

Next, the Superintendent will submit this option for the School Board’s formal consideration as a new business item at its regular business meeting on Sept. 18. The School Board is scheduled to vote on Oct. 23. Any change will not take place until the 2015-16 school year.

• Elementary: 8 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. or 9:20 a.m. to 4:05 p.m. (depending on the school)
• Middle: 7:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
• High School: 8-8:10 a.m. to 2:45-2:55 p.m.
• Plan Cost/# of Buses: $5,438,022 (47 buses)
• Revised Plan Cost: $4,907, 482 (27 buses)

* As part of the FY 2014 Final Budget Review, the School Board approved a purchase of 20 buses.
**Cost disparity is due to the different numbers of small buses vs. large buses for each plan.

Preferred Option Overview:

• This option has the majority of elementary schools starting at the same time or within five minutes of their current start time. The remaining elementary schools (approximately 25) will start within 10 minutes of their current start time. As the bulleted times above reflects, all middle schools will begin at 7:30 a.m. and high schools will begin between 8 and 8:10 a.m.
• This option reflects the community’s input from the eight dialogues and online feedback forms, balances the needs of the community, and represents a consensus among many stakeholder groups that will be impacted by this change.
• While middle school times are not optimal yet, the Superintendent will continue to work on moving them closer to 8 a.m. in the future.

Background

The Fairfax County School Board adopted a resolution in April 2012 to seek solutions that will establish high school start times at 8 a.m. or later. After adopting the resolution, the School Board voted in March 2013 to award a contract to Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC) to develop a proposal to achieve the goal.

Working with a stakeholder committee, CNMC’s Division of Sleep Medicine initiated a process to develop a Blueprint for Change. The committee studied several workable scenarios to start high schools in Fairfax County after 8:00 a.m. to improve students’ mental and physical health, academic performance, and safety. The scenarios were presented to the School Board at a work session on April 23.

Four options were presented by consultants from Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC) at community meetings and via an online form in May and June. After analyzing the feedback, CNMC made a final recommendation to the School Board at its work session on July 14.

In total, the School Board has held six work sessions since June 2012 to discuss the issue. Eight community meetings were held between May 19 and June 11 during which approximately 1,000 participants shared their opinions on four options. In addition, more than 2,000 comments were gathered from an online feedback form. Opinions, ideas, and concerns can be directed to any School Board member. Their contact information is available on the FCPS website under School Board.

The School Board is scheduled to vote on the plan on Oct. 23.

Children’s National Medical Center Division of Sleep Medicine

As part of its community engagement efforts, the CNMC team created and maintained a website and social media pages with educational materials, held more than 45 individual community stakeholder meetings, and hosted four group stakeholder meetings to examine costs, logistics, feasibility and the potential impact of moving high school start times later. The work resulted in a number of scenarios/ranges that were considered.

For more information about the Blueprint for Change process, visit http://smartschoolstart.wordpress.com/.