School Start Times Debated Both Locally and Nationally

When the Menomonee Falls School Board at up roughly an hour for the 2012-13 school year, it spurred a on the merits of that decision.

However, stakeholders in the Falls School District aren’t the only ones having this discussion. School start times have recently become a focal point of debate across the nation.

The School Board is considering moving the high school start time from 8:05 a.m. to 7:14 a.m. The new schedule was proposed to help alleviate the number of missed classes due to extracurricular activities at the school, and to build more time into the school year for staff training and development.

The School Board will hold their next meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at . The new schedule also includes an early release each Wednesday at 1:40 p.m.

“We believe this is the best recommendation for instructional time in the 2012-13 school year,” said Superintendent Patricia Greco during a . “We are trying to safeguard the schedule for staff learning without sacrificing staff time, while having it make sense from the instructional side of things.”

Petitioner wants national legislation

However, pushing the high school to an earlier start time is contrary to a current national movement to keep start times later for students. Terra Snider, a Maryland woman, started an online national petition to promote legislation that would prevent schools from starting before 8 a.m.

The petition has received attention from Patch sites and other news outlets across the country. As of Dec. 9, 1,167 people had signed the petition from all corners of the United States. Dozens of signatures originated in Wisconsin including one Menomonee Falls resident.

“I know from being an insomniac, starting during high school, that early start times can significantly impair students' ability to get a good education on a variety of levels,” wrote St. Francis resident Nicholas Grider. “And I don't think you need to have insomnia in order for that to be true.”

Sleep cycles and school schedules have also received significant attention from the scientific community, and were topics of discussion during a Congressional Q&A on student performance on Nov. 16.

Researchers at the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine concluded that an extra hour of sleep can benefit student performance in an April 2011 study titled "Delaying School Starting Time by One Hour: Some Effects on Attention Levels in Adolescents."

“Consequently, the present school schedules can lead to insufficient sleep and disturbed sleep patterns and are followed by a worsening in health, daytime functioning, and academic performance, as well as daytime sleepiness and fatigue,” researchers stated in the report.

Several other studies assert that school should start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for students.

Here are links to other studies conducted on school schedules and the adolescent sleep cycle:

• Impact of Delaying School Start Time on Adolescent Sleep, Mood, and Behavior
• Middle School Start Times: The Importance of a Good Night’s Sleep for Young Adolescents
• Excessive Sleepiness in Adolescents and Young Adults: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment Strategies
• The Impact of School Daily Schedule on Adolescent Sleep

Locally, the Greenfield School Board in the morning. Concerns about the start time’s impact on extra-curricular participation, after-school jobs and families that rely on older students watching younger siblings were all mentioned as negatives of the proposed time changes.

In Whitefish Bay, the to start kindergarten an hour earlier to match the kindergarten schedule to that of first through fifth grade.

A multi-faceted issue

Greco said administrators and the School Board are aware of the studies. However, the decision to change the schedule is meant to balance numerous factors impacting the lives of students.

“The challenge is establishing a calendar that meets the minutes and days required by the state, and gives the kids the opportunity to participate in extracurricular and co-curricular activities in the region,” Greco said. “We’re not debating the sleep studies, but we are also indicating that we need to balance that schedule with activities and instructional time.”