Starr Makes Recommendation on Start Times

By Connor Loughran ‘15

MCPS is continuing to receive feedback from the public in regard to the decision to change the school start times for the 2015-2016 school year. The proposed start times would push back high school start times by 50 minutes (from 7:25am to 8:15am). Additionally, middle schools would start 10 minutes earlier (from 7:55 a.m. to 7:45 a.m.), and elementary schools’ start times would stay the same (8:50 a.m. and 9:15 a.m.), with the day extended by 30 minutes.

“MCPS has conducted an extensive outreach campaign to collect stakeholder input on Superintendent Starr’s recommendation through a variety of methods since October,” said Debra Berner, an Executive Director with MCPS. “All of the input—from all perspectives—are being synthesized and analyzed to inform Dr. Starr’s final recommendation,” she added.

According to Berner, the results should be ready sometime in June, at which point Starr will release his final recommendation based on the input. Additionally, she said that MCPS had collected data via four community public forums, where around 700 people showed up. MCPS has also held meetings with school staff and parents. MCPS’s online discussion forum, called Neighbor to Neighbor, also was used as a platform for discussion. Lastly, some students were given the opportunity to fill out surveys.

The county website stated that Starr’s “recommendation was based on the findings of the 2013 Bell Times Work Group, which studied school start times and the impact they have on student well-being, especially in high school.” This study came after many other studies, most of which point to teenagers needing more sleep than adults.

One such study, by the University of Minnesota, published February 26, conclusively stated positive benefits of later school start times. “Later morning school starts [link] to higher test scores, better grades and fewer teen car crashes,” said the report.

If the proposed changes are implemented, the total cost would be estimated to be roughly 1.2 million dollars, according to a PowerPoint available on the MCPS website. Most of the estimated cost comes from the changes that would need to be made to transportation, the cost of carrying out studies and discussions, and the fact that the school day for elementary schools would be extended by 30 minutes, which may lead to higher electric, plumbing and heating expenses, as well as a need to pay teachers for the extra time.