Superintendent of Schools Dr. William McKersie discuss
options for a proposed later start time for the district.
In the first Board of Education meeting of the new school year, Superintendent of Schools William McKersie updated the board on plans to evaluate and possibly change the start times for Greenwich Public Schools.
“What we need to do, if we’re going to figure this out, is to commit to a set of options which we’re going to analyze,” Mckersie told the board at the meeting last Thursday.
An estimated 39,700 public middle, high, and combined schools in the nation start at an average time of 8:03 a.m., according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. A school system start time of 8:30 a.m. or later gives teenage students a chance to achieve the 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics and the 8 to 10 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.
A May survey sent to local parents, students and teachers showed that 75 percent of parents and 77 percent of students were in favor of a delayed start time. Of the staff polled, 45 percent support a later start time and 20 percent remain neutral.
Any change in start times would be implemented in the 2016 or 2017 school year. If the board wants to make changes for next year, a speedy timeline will be needed for the plan to be included in the budget vote set for December.
Board Chairman Barbara O’Neill expressed concern with the time allotted for the board to make a decision.
“I think the timeline is extremely quick in order to absorb some really important information and to make a very important decision,” O’Neill said. “It seems to me that we need to look at the communication plan in order to strengthen it. Two forums on each side of town don’t seem to be a lot, or enough.”
A total of four community forums to discuss possible start time changes are scheduled for October and November, along with two faculty forums. The four public forums—two in each month—will be available with Spanish translation, according to the board’s general timeline.
Feasibility options and initial budget implications will be presented to the board in October, followed by the superintendent’s recommendation in November. A December vote will decide whether changes are to be made to school
start times.
However, there are still board members who are concerned about changing what is already in place.
“As a parent, I love dropping my kids off at school at 8 o’clock, so I worry about unintended consequences of moving start times all around for any level of school, and what that does for parent involvement,” said board member Peter Bernstein.
Bernstein suggested that even with schedule changes, students like his elementary school children would still have the same workload and after-school activities, but with less time in the day after later start times.
“I worry about other consequences and contingencies, putting more kids on the Post Road at the highest traffic hour, utilization of buses and other things I don’t see on the list,” he said.
A possibility the board is leaving open is the “status quo” option. If it deems through the discussion process that optimal school start times are already in place, then no changes will be made.
The Steering Committee for School Start Times, headed by Cynthia Womack, will take 15 variables and implications into consideration.
Among them are transportation (bus) issues, GHS’s athletic schedules, GHS’s extra-curricular activities, extra-curricular activities at other schools, contractual obligations, non-contractual issues related to staff, building operation, childcare issues, budget issues, before and after-school programs, traffic flow and congestion around town, private schools, and student employment.
The following options are under consideration:
OPTION 1: Switch elementary school and high school start times. Greenwich High would start at 8:15 or 8:45 a.m. and end at 2:45 or 3:15 p.m. Elementary schools would start at 7:30 and end at 2 p.m.
OPTIONS 2 and 3: Start the entire school district 30 or 60 minutes later.
OPTION 4: Extend the high school schedule by one block at the end of the day. Students would then have the option of starting the day during either the first or second block.
OPTION 5: “Recharge” schedule. A delayed opening, once a week on a designated day for GHS. For example, every Wednesday, high school would begin two hours later.
