The Newton School Committee will make a decision about late high school times at Monday’s meetings. Groups such as the Newton South High School Council and NewtonHighSchools.com have promoted awareness and advocacy for later high school start times. The research is unambiguous. Later high school start times are associated with better mental health, better physical health, improved academic performance, lower drug use, and lower incidence of traffic accidents. Detractors point out that not all stakeholder groups agree on the same plan, and extra busing costs and labor negotiation costs might put a financial burden on the Newton Public Schools.
Should the School Committee move to a later time or not?
I have emailed a daughter and mom in one district that just switched, Bellevue, Washington. Claire, the daughter, is a high school senior and a National Merit Semi-Finalist. She wants to be a physician. She told me, “As a student in a school that has recently switched to the late start, I can say that I’m absolutely getting more sleep, am less tired in morning classes as well as throughout my day, and find it easier to concentrate on my work. I have been keeping track of my sleep patterns throughout this change, and I get on average 35 more minutes of sleep on weekdays than I used to when school started at 7:30.”
Maura told me that all the parents that she speaks to are very happy with the change, even parents who were skeptical.
Maura told me, “From my perspective as a parent, I have seen the change from a 7:30 am to 8:30 am start in the Bellevue School District to be beneficial in every way. My daughter in particular had a very rigorous program for sophomore and junior years. She slowly became increasingly exhausted and lethargic over time. The later start has allowed her to begin to heal and recover during her senior year. It makes mornings easier on the whole family.Tutorial has been moved to before school and that has not caused major problems. We strongly advocate for the change to a later start.”
I dont think anyone is doubting that it wouldn’t help students. But how will it effect the Athletic schedules? There are many games after school during the entire school year. The way it is now – students if they have an away game might miss only one class but if they go to a later schedule – how will that affect their academic schedule. And if other schools are not on the same schedule I am sure it will create a scheduling mess. And what about other after school activities such as theater or music etc. Are they planning on moving all of this to weekends? Then the students will not have any down time at all.
@Joanne– The questions you ask are perfectly fine. They should be asked, and they have been asked repeatedly for the past 13 years. So you’d think that elected officials who have even a lick of common sense could have figured it out by now. But as I’ve pointed out many times on this blog, our School Committee is unfortunately comprised of a group of pathetic losers. No one asked them to land a group of students on Mars. Rather, they’ve proven their inability to work around some scheduling issues so that Newton’s high school students can lead a healthier lifestyle.
The problem with your logic, Joanne, is that you’re failing to weigh the severity of sleep deprivation properly. In other words, you’re grossly underestimating the health consequences of sleep deprivation on teens. I respectfully suggest that you simply google “high school start times,” or “teen sleep deprivation,” and you’ll quickly see that there are not two sides to this particular story. Virtually every respectable study and all of the available evidence indicates without question that the results of sleep deprivation are far more significant in teens than the rest of the population. Sleep deprivation in teens has been linked to increased drug use, depression, and suicide. Those are among the more severe consequences, and they are regrettably substantiated by what we have seen right here in Newton. There are numerous other consequences too… reduced test scores, eating disorders, traffic accidents… a lengthy and troubling list.
So, the real question is… When we have a problem that has serious negative health consequences for a large majority of our high school students, should our leaders move definitively to fix that problem or allow secondary scheduling issues to compromise the daily health of 3000 high school students? First, they need to change the start time. Then, all the secondary issues will be worked out. Unfortunately, what we have seen is a bunch of dumb asses on the School Committee who keep allowing the tail to wag the dog.
I am beyond disgusted. This was an issue that was being debated when my oldest graduated from high school in 1999. Yes, eighteen years ago. EIGHTEEN years!!! The effects of sleep deprivation on young people were known then.
My youngest child suffered from this, NO MATTER how early he went to bed. Even just an extra ten minutes of sleep would’ve made a difference, but despite every major study, this school committee fiddled. Now he graduated in 2016 and they still play their games. I totally recognize the logistics that need to be worked out that are inherent in this change but we’re talking about people’s health and this is not a change requiring endless amounts of debate and study. It’s people’s health!!! The Committee’s behavior that have brought serious consequences down on my family every single day because of their inaction, especially from 2013 -2016, is, quite simply, not forgivable.
At the highest level, the NPS’ number one priority should be to provide education for all children, not to provide sports programs for some children. That being said, all indications are that the impact on sports will be minimal, at worst. I have watched countless School Committee meetings. Although initially, there was fear regarding sports schedules, we found that schools in our league are able to schedule games that would work with a later release. Also, there is flexibility to schedule away games when schools ends earlier than normal.
Newton Public Schools and the Education Center are closed tomorrow. I expect that the School Committee won’t have a meeting tomorrow night. Keeping us in suspense until sometime in March after February school vacation.
The latest contention that not all stakeholders agree on a plan may partially be a result of the way they asked for the information. On the parent survey they asked for different thoughts of characteristics of each plan but towards the end you had to pick your one preferred option. I choose the option that best suited our schedule but also did not impact the elementary schools as negatively (starting them somewhat early is ok but with our current bus schedule it takes 45-60 min to cover the whole bus route which could make for some really early mornings). Though my kids will be out of elementary school when this is to be implemented it didn’t think it was fair to just think of how it impacted my kids. There were two options that I preferred so rather than just choosing one it would have been better to have participants rank the plans and you might have seen more consensus or a few similar plans might of stood out. Because I wasn’t given the opportunity to indicate my preference for both of my top options the survey wasn’t able to capture the fact that I might find two options somewhat equally preferred.
I think the nature of the beast here is that people are going to be thinking of themselves and where their children are now which creates competing viewpoints in a situation like this. When different issues have arisen at the elementary school level such as overcrowding/buffer zones we are always told that NPS & School Committee has to make decisions for the district as a whole. I know that you cannot make decisions like these without imput/buy in but it seems like this may have been one issue where they should have been more emphasis on the big picture in making this happen.
As predicted by Jo-Louise, tonight’s School Committee meeting is rescheduled for March 2. Late high school starts will be deliberated at the new meeting. Mark your calendar.