Panel to study delayed start time
SOUTH COVENTRY » The Owen J. Roberts School Board has begun the process of forming a steering committee to study changing secondary school start time from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m.
The new committee, which will be formed on March 23, will be headed by board member John Diehl. It will be comprised of four sub-committees tasked with investigating various impacts of a later start time.
Those will include traffic and transportation, extracurricular and athletics, family and community impact, and staff and students subcommittees. Each subcommittee will have administrative and board liaisons, as well as any other interested stakeholders.
Leslie Proffitt, chairwoman of the board’s pupil services committee, said the board will reach out to teachers, students, coaches, parents, support staff, employers, and other school and community members to serve on the subcommittees.
Diehl told the board and administrative liaisons that they should seek to include both parents who support the idea of a moving to an 8:30 a.m. start time, as well as those who oppose it.
“I ask that we recruit parents on both sides of the issue with the
understanding that no is not an answer,” Diehl said. “Were going to fully explore this to find out what would have to happen to make this happen. I’m not saying we’re going to do it, but that’s the assumption.”
No specified size has been set for the subcommittees, and Diehl said it would be up to the administrative and board liaisons to determine the makeup of each group.
As the head of the steering committee, Diehl’s role will be to “keep the subcommittees on point.”
“My work is going to be holding people accountable and hopefully coming forth with real recommendations to look at come fall,” he said.
District Chief Financial Officer Jaclin Krumrine said, for budgetary reasons, the board would need to make a decision by October or November if it wants to implement a change of start times for the 2021-22 school year. The board has already decided not to make a change for the 2020-21 school year.
Proffitt said the committees will formed by March 23, and will be expected to provide input to the board by May 11 regarding what data they need as well as a timeline for gathering that data.
Ultimately, the goal will be to move toward an 8:30 a.m. start time in the middle and high schools, and to find out what the impacts and barriers to that might be, Proffitt said.
“If the research is telling us that (the optimum start time) is 8:30 a.m., we want to base our premise on what the research says,”
Proffitt explained.
The board’s decision to form a steering committee with a number of subcommittees was based on guidelines set forth in a Pennsylvania’s Joint State Government Commission Report, released in October of last year.
That report, titled Sleep Deprivation in Adolescents: The Case for Delaying Secondary School Start Times, recommended that secondary schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. It contains an appendix that lays out strategies for districts seeking to change to later start times. Forming subcommittees made up of various stakeholders was among those strategies.
The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends that secondary schools begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m. Owen J. Roberts High School and Middle School students begin their day at 7:30 a.m., while elementary schools open an hour later.
The board has been grappling for several years with sleep health concerns. Last year, they looked into delaying the opening bell by a half hour in all schools. While some parents have been pushing hard for that change, many others came out against it.
Those in opposition worried about how a later start and finish to the school day might negatively impact elementary school children, day care, work schedules, sports and traffic, among other things.
Diehl said that having subcommittees will enable the board to look more deeply into all those items.
“The idea is to allow topics to be investigated without holding up the business of the board. It allows us to focus on other issues,” he said.