Research continues to provide evidence that adolescent students perform better if their school day starts later in the day. As students mature into the adolescent stage, their sleep/wake cycle changes. Students in this stage of life tend to be more alert, focus better, and make better decisions if/when their academic day starts as near to 8:30 AM as possible. In addition to behavioral benefits, studies indicate that fewer automobile accidents involving teenager drivers occur if the students are on the road later in the day.

It is a possibility. The District is aware that this change causes many questions among parents; however, the research is clear that the adolescent students benefit most from a later start to their school day.

While most students do not have routes of this length, some students would be part of a bus route with a length of approximately 50 minutes. The best way to determine the answer to this question is to consider the current length of your child’s bus route compared to the start time of school. Use the same math and use approximately 7:30 AM as the start to the elementary day. This will provide you an approximation of the time your child would board the bus.

Costs. A change to two tiers would require a multi-million dollar addition to the District budget. Costs would be incurred through the purchase and maintenance of a larger bus fleet as well as additional fuel and personnel costs. These funds do not currently exist.

The middle school has the least amount of bus routes of the three school levels. If that school level was scheduled in the middle time slot, it would increase transportation costs. Additionally, if the middle schools were scheduled in the middle slot, this would force the high school to fall last in the sequence. This is impractical due to the impact on after school activities as well as traffic patterns around the high school area during that time of day. For these reasons, the administration does not anticipate making a recommendation that includes the middle school starting in the middle time slot.

The reason for considering a change in school hours is based on research that indicates that adolescent students perform better when school starts as close to (or later than) 8:30 a.m. Moving the middle school to the first time/attendance slot is contrary to that research. There are several articles outlining the research on this page (right column). We would also be required to incur costs for additional supervision of students after school as they wait for their activities to begin. Staff that support our students through coaching sports and clubs would also be unable to participate in valuable professional development or risk missing their coaching assignment. For these reasons, the administration does not anticipate making a recommendation that includes the middle school starting in the first time slot.

The administration continues to address the need to provide adequate time between the school levels. Adequate time is needed so that the Transportation Department can safely and efficiently run all routes between tiers (levels).

The District has engaged with a consultant with expertise in school transportation routing. We are presenting at each Board meeting the work and findings of our consultant as well as our administration and Transportation Department (leading to a final recommendation). The administration will share a recommendation at the November 14, 2018 School Board Meeting and the Board will take action on the recommendation at the November 28 meeting.