Noy Alon
Managing Editor of News
As the School Committee’s High School Start Time Working Group reveals their six proposed scenarios for delaying the start time for the majority of Newton Public Schools, members of the South community remain either skeptical or supportive of this initiative.
All six measures will shift the start time for both Newton South and North by a range of 20 minutes to a possible hour and 20 minute delay.
In addition, some scenarios will affect all levels of public education from either beginning elementary schools 40 minutes earlier to changing the middle school start time by 20 minutes.
Ellen Gibson, a School Committee member in the High School Start Time Working Group, explains the group was guided to these scenarios by several underlying goals.
“We wanted to see whether and how we could maximize sleep for teenagers and this would be sort of an adequate amount of sleep at developmentally appropriate times and we also wanted […] to make sure that any change we considered would not disproportionately or inequitably impact any constituency group,” said Gibson.
After talking with stakeholders such as english learning families, athletic directors, parks and recreation authorities, and after school programmers, for Gibson these scenarios demonstrate all the realistic possibilities of maximizing adolescent sleep in a district as large as Newton.
In addition to these stakeholder discussions, Gibson explains how the group facilitated surveys to all students, faculty, and parents or guardians to better understand the public’s current situations.
Even after all this research and logistical calculations, students like junior Carina Ramos favor none of the proposed scenarios and believe the later start times do not present a solution for student stress.
“I think that students who currently have issues with sleeping are students who either overwork themselves, meaning taking classes that are too difficult for them, or have a workload that is heavier than they can manage or they are not managing their time effectively. So, I feel like any change in the start time is not going to fix those problems necessarily,” said Ramos.
Ramos believes a more effective strategy to reduce student stress is to ingrain in students’ minds that it would benefit them in the long run if they completed all their homework before they watched television or checked social media.
Ramos continues by stating if these principles were emphasized at a young age, students, once they experience the workload of high school, can manage their time and complete their homework efficiently, enabling themselves to go to bed earlier.
However, Ruth Goldman, a School Committee member in the High School Start Time Working Group, sees later start times as an important piece of a broader initiative to reduce stress.
“The high school start time is not a let’s fix everything sort of solution. It’s part of this whole effort to decrease the amount of homework, increase these homework free weekends and all sorts of stuff like that,” said Goldman.
Both Gibson and Goldman admit that delaying the start times of schools will not by itself eliminate student stress, but these delays coupled with programs already in place to reduce homework loads and curriculums focused on social and emotional wellness will collectively decrease stress.
Principal Joel Stembridge also believes that the science research behind the benefits of delaying the start times for high schools, in particular, remains clear.
“There is very clear research on the benefits of a later school start time for student sleep in particularly, but [also] student health […] and student safety in terms of driving and injuries for athletics. So, there is a lot of information out there about why this is good or why a later start time would be good for students,” said Stembridge.
However, Stembridge remains hesitant to fully support the initiative because he admits that these scenarios present a large change to South and as with any change there are some benefits, but also some important drawbacks to consider.
Freshman Erin Acosta agrees with the research that proves later start times would not only decrease the amount of stress felt by students, but also increase their performance in classes.
“Yeah I think that especially coupled with the fact that we get a lot of homework and usually stay up really late that if we had more time in the morning to sleep it would really help our performance and make our moods a lot better than just kind of being zombies around the school,” said Acosta.
Acosta believes that with more sleep students’ performance and behavior will improve and delaying the high school start time enables students to get that necessary amount of sleep.
Sophomore Brendan Locke though remains hesitant to support the initiative due to the fact that practices and games will be shortened because of the darkness.
“I think that’s good, but the only reason I oppose the late start because like I said it’s going to get dark for sports, but I think they should be getting lights especially for the football field for football games and soccer games like the late at night games,” said Locke.
However, Acosta believes that it is the player’s decision to participate in time-consuming after school activities and the majority of students should not be punished for the choices of their peers.
For Ramos, the more prominent drawback of some of these proposed scenarios remains the required cost to pay for additional buses.
Newton would need to add between 325,000 to 700,000 dollars to its budget for the implementation of some of the scenarios, thus Ramos explains how the small amount of extra sleep does not outweigh or is worth that amount money.
“I think that it is not worth spending that much of our taxpayers money on the buses just because kids don’t know how to do their homework effectively. So, speaking as one of those kids, I need to get better. I don’t need for my parents to pay for me to have more sleep just so I can still get no sleep,” said Ramos.
If the district has that much extra money to spend on additional buses, Ramos believes that those funds should be allocated towards facilities management, new technology, or teacher pay upgrades.
However though the district has a finite amount of money, Goldman explains that each year the school committee has the authority to make adjustments they deem necessary and reasonable.
“I think every year the school committee and the administration, driven by what students need and what faculty needs, create a budget based on those values and needs. We add more classrooms if we have more students, [….] we build new schools, we have a whole social and emotional learning curriculum now that we didn’t have a couple of years ago. So, all that stuff, it all costs money, so there is decisions made and I think this is a reasonably big ticket item, but so were a lot of things,” said Goldman.
All initiatives that the school committee has approved and implemented in the past, cost the district money, so both Gibson and Goldman say if later start times are prioritized then they could be financially possible for Newton.
For students like Acosta, even a 20 minute delay in the high school start time will cause important, beneficial impacts on her daily routine.
“We have to choose between breakfast and sleeping the extra five minutes and I don’t think that’s a really good choice especially if you have last lunch, so I think it’s really important even if it was just 10 more minutes,” said Acosta.
Ramos though remains adamant that to achieve the desired goal of reduced student stress the focus should be placed on effective time management skills instead of later start times, which are either too expensive or won’t make a large enough impact.
Currently, the school committee will continue to dedicate their efforts on public outreach, communication, and education to acquire feedback and opinions from those affected.
Once the committee has consolidated all this information from stakeholders, students, faculty, and parents or guardians, they will come to a decision sometime in early February.
As a result, Stembridge and Gibson emphasize that the time for students to voice their opinions on the initiative is now and encourage all stakeholders to remain engaged and informed.
“I don’t think that this is a simple, silver bullet kind of problem to tackle and it’s worth really looking at closely. I just would encourage students to keep giving us and feedback […] I think how students feel about sleep and after school activities and stress is really critical and I think that the school department and the school committee can learn a lot from students about that area,” said Gibson.
