A WCSU School Start Time Subcommittee has formed to explore the possibility of changing the start time of schools in Washington Central, primarily motivated by research showing that later start times are particularly good for teenagers.
There’s no specific proposal on the table yet, but several possibilities are being considered including:
- Swap high school and elementary start times,
- Move both high school and elementary starts later, or
- Start both high school and elementary at the same time.
This TED talk by a sleep researcher, a ten minute long video, talks about the benefits of later start times and recommends at least 8:30 am for high school.
There is far less research on how younger children are affected by school start times, but if you want a deeper dive into that for teenagers a number of articles and papers are linked here.
According to one participant, even without details of a specific proposal, the mood of those attending the two community meetings held so far has been supportive of a change.
It looks like an online survey should be out in May to try to get a broader sense of how people feel about this issue.
The next meeting is April 23rd at 5:30 at U-32 (room 128-131).
