Do you recall your old high school schedule? When did you arrive, and when did classes end? According to its blog, here is the Newton South High School schedule for this academic year: Classes start at 9 AM and end at 3:45.
The shift to later hours came from determined lobbying by some parents and educators, who cited studies that adolescent ability to learn suffers in the early morning and benefits from sleeping later. Whatever the case, the school day ends late, and extracurricular activities, including sports, may not start until 4:30. Some sports programs may not even end until well after 7:30!
I’d like to point out that other excellent high schools in our region have an entirely different approach to the school schedule. Here is what the Lynnfield High School website says: School hours are 7:50-2:26. In partnership with our community, Lynnfield High School provides a learning environment that prepares all students to reach their full potential as lifelong learners and as contributing participants in a global community.
Can anyone seriously argue that North or South offers a better education than Lynnfield’s because of our schedule? Newton South had such a schedule when I began teaching English there in 1981. In my view, it worked well on every level. In addition, back then, three days a week after school, teachers met with some students in a tutorial block from 2:30-3:20 or so. Extracurricular activities such as theatre and debate and sports usually began, however, during the tutorial time. Athletic practices typically ran from 3-5 PM. If students met with their teachers, they would come late to practice with a note, and it was no big deal.
Imagine a world in which students could be home after practice by 5:30! Now imagine, if you will, the current situation. Some of the tutorial sessions have been moved to mid-day, meaning that academic classes run all the way to 4:30. This new shift eliminates the possibility altogether of starting practice earlier during tutorial time. Practices may begin in March and early April nearly at dusk.
Starting extracurricular activities so late makes life exceedingly difficult, and not just for high school athletes. Youth athletic programs are having problems finding fields to use since the high schools monopolize them until late. To be honest, I can’t grasp why our old schedule at South, like Lynnfield’s current schedule, could be so terrible as to warrant this radical change. To move the starting time from 7:40 to 8 AM would have offered a reasonable concession. Leaving tutorial blocks at the end of the day and allowing teams to practice at that time would also help. Class time, especially long blocks, should be curtailed as well; students, to be honest, get bored despite teachers’ best efforts to liven things up. Few high schools around here subject their students to such a long school day. It is quality, not length, that matters when it comes to class time.
I know, I have complained about the high school schedule on this blog before. Sadly, nothing that has happened in the interim convinces me that Newton made the right decision to start and end the school day so late.
Grew up in the late 80’s in Brookline with a similar schedule, Bob. It was ideal.
Bussing availability and coordination is a challenge…I get it.
But high school kids effective got first bus in recent years and now the last.
Combine the radical scheduling roller coaster with Covid in the middle and both NPS and the the SC effectively destroyed the class of 2023.
Bob, I’m not sure I understand what you posted. Is the schedule materially different at Newton South vs Newton North or per class year? The schedule I’m seeing for Newton North starts at 9 and ends before 4:30. I’ll try and get an example to post.
I certainly understand the frustration of those families who have kids playing sports. But I’m not yet seeing the negativity Bob and Matt are talking about for other activities. I’m taking a wait and see approach.
And Matt, I don’t think it is fair to blame the SC for Covid (even in the best case scenario Covid would have cost class time like it did for every other public school in MA), and the “radical scheduling roller coaster” is only in week 2. As for effectively destroying the class of 2023, that may win the prize of most dramatic statement of 2021. I think the class of 2023 will rise above and be just fine…
I believe that the schedules at both high schools are essentially the same. My main point remains: high school ought to end earlier in the day, as it does in most other communities in Greater Boston.
The start is actually 9am and end time us 3:45pm M,W,Th, and Friday with Tuesdays ending at 3:25 I believe, Our HS kids end their academic day later than any other school in the state. This is not the ideal way to implement later start time.
“The feedback was clear. There is support for a later start time, but that support is tempered by the impact to end times. End times after 3:00 p.m. create significant challenges as they encroach upon important student activities, as well as the schedules of families and faculty.”-NPS High School Start time website March 2017
Just to clarify each day except Tuesday ends at 3:45pm. Tuesdays ends at 3:35 with the last block being a club block.
Correction Tuesdays end us 3:25 ..not 3:35 as I mistyped above.
Bob, the difference matters in my view. Your post makes it seem like the school day is much longer and later than it actually is. I’m not seeing anything going until 4:30 at North. Maybe I’m just not aware, but my experience is the same as Newton Highlands Mom in terms of start and end times.
Let’s see how this shakes out for a year or two. Or at least a month or three. We kept to the early schedule for decades.
So far, the main complaints I’ve heard are from folks that aren’t based on their own personal transportation/work issues (valid all, but individual in nature) are the families and kids playing fall sports. I appreciate that this hits them harder than other kids. Perhaps practice could end 30 minutes earlier? Why are changes to the sporting schedules viewed as a imaginary red line for many communities?
I’m certainly not a teacher or a coach. But as a parent of a child who has sleep issues (not related to social media or gaming, that’s an unfair generalization, and in Newton is just as likely to be school work), I think this later start is good for my child. Just one data point, but perhaps others might weigh in as well.
Yes, I arrived bleary-eyed at George White’s class, just down the hall from you, at about 8am. A block was miserable, and I was able to arrange a free block in my schedule as an upperclassman. I’m glad my daughter is being offered a little more sleep this year and a little more time to wake up and get ready for school with the 9am start. A compromise of anything less would have had very little benefit IMHO.
From the NPS website:
High Schools
9:00 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. (early release Tuesdays at 3:25 p.m.)
My HS went from 7:40 to 2:40. I had lots trouble falling asleep every night and getting to homeroom by 7:40 was brutal. I literally rolled out of bed, walked to school, and was groggy as hell until about noon. I was a mediocre student.
@Fig there are not sufficient fields for the teams that need them so some teams are starting practice after another team is done with a field. This is particularly challenging in the fall where you start to have to deal with it getting dark early and our city most definitely lacks enough lighted fields. Once you need lights it gets exponentially more challenging.
Another issue I have seen from an athletic perspective is that every district that NS competes against in the DCL has already switched to later start times but all are able to end earlier than we do. This is where it becomes a bigger issue with us as outliers. So being the outlier is really the issue. It means opponents were asked to schedule games at later times than the standard game time and on Saturdays to accommodate us. It used to be that boys and girls teams had alternating schedules now that isn’t necessarily the case as other schools need to accommodate us. This results in more midweek practices going on at the fields since more teams are likely to be home at the high schools whereas in the past some would be traveling. Another negative scenario that has occurred due to this new schedule for some teams is that they are arriving at an away field at game time and they are forced to skip warm up. The whole point of a warm up is to gradually prepare your body for the activity to lessen the athletes risk of injury.
Athletics are important to self esteem and mental health. I know that athletics shouldn’t drive the education policy but neither should transportation decisions which is unfortunately what has occurred.
I support a later start time but this was not the best way to go about it. Fig you are saying give this a chance. My issue here is that NPS has been slow to make any changes to correct course. Two major changes were put into place this year which are the new block schedule with WIN blocks and the later start/end time. Neither was mentioned in the system goals for this year. There should be a well thought out plan to review these changes to analyze both the good and bad aspects. How can you improve on something if you aren’t willing to acknowledge what isn’t working. Based on past practices the class of 2023, 2024 will both suffer through the imperfect later end time plan that was implemented, no changes will likely occur in their careers.
Lastly it is not all about the athletes. The late end time effects students who would like to work. Some are restricted by time (7pm is 15 yrs old for example) due to their age but more practically most of the businesses in my village close at 5. I also spoke with a local business owner (&parent) who said the late end time is negatively effecting her business. I will encourage her to post so you can hear first hand her experiences.
For those of you who have children who struggle to get to school early, I can appreciate your thoughts. Note however that even the non-profit that boasts about the benefits of late start claims major victories in MA with the 8:00 start times.
https://www.startschoollater.net/success-stories.html
They also expect schools to “figure out the details” and there is no sense that NPS attempted to review the impact on after school activities and all youth athletic programs that are now “taking the hit” on behalf of the new school schedule.
I support a late start as well. But I DO NOT support ending at 3:45. This is later than EVERY school in the state. Once again, we have expertise in Newton and “special circumstances” that differentiate us from every other city in this state.
3:45 dismissal does not align with enough activities so it’s overall negative for a large group of students. I am sorry if people think there has to be “outrage” to know that this is a problem. I’m struggling to see any parent thing it’s good to have their child on the field until 8:00 PM so they can play in a school sport. These are not club sports.
I have had kids in NPS 16 years. I remember going to presentations by the SC back in 2015 and then they did survey after survey, ad nauseum. Covid happened and it finally changed and prompted action.
While not perfect, it is much healthier for my daughter to leave at. 8:30 than it was for her to catch a 6:50 am bus. I am grateful for the change. And no, Bob, she does not play videogames or spend her nights on social media She is an athlete and it is true she gets home late sometimes, but then again why does Newton South play against teams that are a 45 minute and sometimes an hour bus ride away (Acton, Concord, Westford, Lincoln Sudbury).
Any schedule change is never going to be perfect and will always be inconvenient to some. If the school day ended earlier you would have parents complaining about reduced instructional time.
I have attended the community meetings since 2012, and every community meeting had the same conclusion. You can’t end too late.
My high school was 8 AM to 2:15 PM every day.
Let me fast forward to this year. My sophomore at Newton South never takes the bus home any afternoon due to OUT of school commitments. On Mondays & Wednesdays she is on a sports team and I pick her up. The late bus is too late.
On Tuesdays she has a job, and because she can’t take any school bus (like you could pre-Covid) I have to pick her up and drive her. And the Tuesday pick up lines are awful. I don’t think clubs are in full swing yet, so most kids (who don’t have sports practice or drama) get picked up because the busses don’t start until after clubs.
On Wednesdays & Fridays her private after school lessons start too early for her to take the bus home.
This schedule STINKS. My older child, who used to have to RUN to catch the 6:50 AM bus from our neighborhood, was able to take the school bus to his job, and take the bus home without this awful schedule.
Last year at the 4 PM let out, my kid NEVER spent time outside in the SUN.
By the time Newton fixes this mess that we have created, my kids will all be post high school. I really hope we can fix it, because a 3:45 PM dismissal is too late.
The availability of athletic fields is a major issue but was always a major issue. The solution is not to go back to high school student sleeping through first period, but to fix up existing fields, add lights, add turf, and commit to athletics in Newton.
I apologize for my gratuitous reference to social media and video games, and I have removed that sentence from my piece. Not sure why the schedule I found online listed the hours as even longer than those cited by the readers of this blog. I do know that last year we Spring coaches could not begin formal practice until 4:30, and I fear that this Spring the start time might be even later.
Others on this stream have pointed out that the Newton high school day is longer than that of its rivals and peers. Having taught before and after the school day was lengthened in the 1990s, in conformity with state mandates, I assure you that the quality of instruction did not suddenly improve after the change. Another point: many studies suggest that the family that dines together stays together. There is a virtue in students being at home in time for the evening meal with their parents and siblings, trite as that may sound.
Finally, I completely agree that some of our Dual County League schools are far, far away. More than once last year our bus returned in the dark. If the late school day is here to stay, then perhaps Newton’s high schools should organize leagues whose member schools are close by, and never more than a half hour away.
The later start time has been _great_ for our family. My son actually wakes up on his own (!!!), eats breakfast sitting down, and has time to bike to school! He is a different kid. No more perpetual jet lag.
No one is against a later start time but it is the way this was achieved which goes against what was clearly stated in the Districts recommendations from March of 2017 regarding ending no later than 3pm.
I agree. It is the VERY late end time that is ruining our afternoons. And it will get worse in the winter with no sunlight. Any thing after 3 PM creates havoc.
I agree Bob that if Newton has the longest school day in the state. I wonder if the school’s reconfigured schedule hs something to do with it. The new WIN block and Lion block seem to be a space where clubs meet during the day instead of the end of the day. I know that hearing for from my daughter, the WIN block seems unnecessarily restrictive.
On a side note, I would be in favor of the high schools re-configuring or reorganizing their league. First, a lengthy bus ride doesn’t exactly mesh with Newton’s purported commitment to the environment, and second it is a waste of time both for coach and student to ride on a bus for 45 minutes (each way!) after a long school day.
I’m proud to have been the first candidate for public office [Mayor] in Newton to advocate for later high school start times. That was back in 2005.
It was a frustrating experience to watch the next 15 years as a series of inept School Committees fumbled an issue so critical to the physical and mental well being of Newton’s high school students. I have nothing but commendation and admiration for the School Committee members who finally made the change to later start times. It is fully supported by the underlying science behind sleep deprivation.
Our high school students will benefit greatly from later start times in the years to come. To me, any criticism of the change is unfounded, and based on a willing ignorance of the health consequences associated with systemic sleep deprivation.
Mike Striar, what do you think of the end time? I do agree a change had to happen from the 7:40 AM start time, but I am curious to know your experiences with the 3:45 PM end time.
The new schedule has been really great for my NSHS senior. He gets up, has time to eat, and bikes to school most days. Part of the reason he prefers to bike is that it takes much less time than taking the bus, so it is easier for him to get to his outside after school activities. He doesn’t like the longer class/block lengths in the new schedule. He doesn’t do athletics, but does do stage crew and Ligerbots, so we’ll see how the later end time works out for him as the year goes on.
@Bob: Now that several people have found (and even posted!) the correct high school start and end times from the NPS website, maybe you could consider adding a correction to your initial post, for the benefit of people just coming to the thread?
My big concern is that NPS should have a rational process for gathering data about big changes, and subsequently evaluating and documenting said changes, so that we can learn something from the process, regardless of whether that is that the change was great, awful, or had some good results and some bad results, and maybe some modifications could help. I don’t see this happening with the current administration. I think the only way this will happen is if the school committee demands it.
I agree with Bruce C that the WIN block is very restrictive. My student says that it used to be possible to go talk to multiple teachers in a single WIN block, but now it is only possible to talk to one – you have to schedule where you will be ahead of time and stay there for the entire WIN block. I think moving these to the end of the day and allowing teams to practice at those times makes sense, but only if it is clear to everyone that attending tutorial blocks with teachers when necessary takes priority over athletic practices.
I will see to the change.
I want to focus on something tangible that can be changed quickly. Lack of lights on some fields. Let’s figure out the low hanging fruit (ones where neighbors won’t be impacted or minimally impacted) and get those fields lit. Can the parents of kids playing sports on unlit fields post the potentially helpful lighting projects?
I am absolutely THRILLED with the new times. My older kids are deeply jealous of their youngest sibling, who does not have to get up in the middle of the night to get to the bus stop in time.
It has improved our quality of life significantly. It’s ironic that it took COVID to make it happen.
What a sad and perpetually misguided discussion. I cannot even remember when my HS day started and ended. I am pretty sure I was out of the house around 7AM and back around 5 or 6 PM. In the end, these details were meaningless. I did my work. I participated in extracurriculars. I was admitted to every college, university, and institute to which I applied. All in all a successful four years. Neither I nor my parents spent time hyper-analyzing the arcane minutia that seems to dominate Newtonian dynamics. I mean really. Who in 1980’s suburbia would even think to spend time and energy on such trivialities? Yet we all seem to have survived and most thrived. The focus was on getting the big stuff done well. I can only hope I did half as well passing this message on to my kids as my parents did to me.
Fig- I don’t think there are any lighting projects. It took a very very long time to get the lights at Newton South installed last year. In that case, parents fund-raised nearly 300K to get them installed.
Fig- I don’t think there are any lighting projects. It took a very very long time to get the lights at Newton South installed last year. In that case, parents fund-raised nearly 300K to get them installed.
From the start, the school department has been dealing with three contradictory messages from three groups of vocal parents.
* Later start time
* No later end times
* No reduction in instruction time
Any two of the three is possible but not all three.
My daughter just graduated so I no longer have skin in the game but if I did I’d (and she’s) be very pleased with the new schedule.
@Fig….for once, I did the Bizarro Sean Roche and tried to convey a point with too few words. :-)
What I meant last night….
8am to 2:15 am was MY high school experience – all 4 years.
Our son’s experience at South has gone from super early start…then Covid…and now this super late start (and end). #rollercoaster
Certainly not blaming NPS and SC for Covid (other than dragging on a timely return to in-person), but why can’t High Schoolers have the coveted 8-2:15 window that many of us benefitted from as teens?
High schoolers have the most homework (compared to Middle and Elementary), more extra-curricular activities (sports, job, drivers Ed, SAT classes) and other the looming pressure of college. It just doesn’t seem fair to ask them to sacrifice sleep, meals and mental health as well.
Elmo, my schedule was something like yours. Bus at 7, school at 7:30, out at 1:50 for track from 2:30 to 5. I did fine.
I am also aware 1984 isn’t 2021. And there’s a thing called survivor’s bias. And that our memories are quite selective and malleable with time.
Just because we did things a certain way doesn’t mean we can’t do things better now, with more knowledge, research, empathy, and care.
(It also doesn’t mean that we can’t fail to implement well, but I digress.)
@Fig the lighting at NS which cost $434k was community raised(NGS & NYS contributed $100k but have not been given access to the field) . It also took 16 yrs to get neighborhood approval. There was discussion of lights at NN but those would also need to be funded by the community. I was told that they did not light the fields at North when the new school was built due to neighbors objecting to the lights. So the challenge is not only to fund the lights but also get neighbors on board with adding the lights.
@Bret – you mention that your son bikes to school. One thing I have noticed a lot at South lately is kids biking home in the dark from activities. They are 99% of the time without lights on their bikes. This is very concerning to me as they are difficult to see and mix that with teenage drivers.
@Bret I completely agree with you on the fact that NPS needs a rational process in place to analyze these changes, It was mentioned as a transitional plan in the spring thus there should be a plan on to evaluate what is good, what is bad and what could be better. I do not want to hear that it is a “success”…there needs to be a true analysis and an acknowledgment of what the flaws/negatives in the schedule are. I am hoping after the Nov election that new members will bring that type of analytical approach to SC matters.
i graduated in 2001. i want to say we started at 7:50 but its been 20 years (oy vey)
im an early bird so that was fine with me. Plenty of kids got into good colleges and now have good careers :)
Whether students get into good colleges (however that is defined) or go on to productive careers is not at issue here. The impetus for this later start time is mental health, not academics.