Seattle Schools' Taskforce Recommends Changing Bell Times
I'm a bit late on this one but the the taskforce on bell times released its report to the Board on Wednesday. The upshot is that they voted that high schools should start an hour later with most elementaries starting 90 minutes later. There were three minority reports.
As I previously reported, Bellevue and Mercer Island are working together on this issues as well as Northshore and Lake Washington. All these districts and Seattle School District are faced with the financial and logistic challenges that a change would bring.
Recommendation:
SCORE: [3.45]
Modified Flip option 17 votes
No Change 2 votes
Extended High School Day 0 votes
Extended High School Day 0 votes
(Non-voting task force members: 3)
Tier 1 is most elementary schools would start at 8 am and end at 2:10 pm.
Tier 2 is some elementary schools and all high schools would start at 8:50 am with elementaries ending at 3:00 pm and high school at 3:20 pm.
Tier 3 is all middle schools and all K-8s would start at 9:40 am and end at 4:10 pm.
The Taskforce believes the Modified Flip would save the district money.
The Taskforce also acknowledges that there will be further community meetings for parents and community to give input.
Pages 13-16 review the Pros and Cons for each of the three voted-on choices.
The Taskforce notes that they DID consider eight other possibilities with the highest ranking on being a Two-Tier system where most elementaries (and one K-8) would start at 8 am and end at 2:10 pm (with the K-8 ending at 2:30 pm). Tier Two would be all other elementaries and all high/middle and K-8s starting at 8:50 am and ending at 3:20 pm.
Also key (and very thoughtful from the Taskforce):
Additionally, this
report contains numerous references and citations of research focusing
on effects to student academics, attendance and well-being from later
start times. There is a wealth of research available on adolescent sleep
patterns and school start and end times (see Addenda ‘Citations from
data review summaries’). However, important to highlight are the limitations to generalizing the findings to Seattle. Often
seen in the cited research itself are caveats to conclusions and notes
of caution in generalizing the results of the studies too broadly. Among
the difficulties faced by researchers was the challenge of establishing
causality over correlation, or collecting consistent, reliable data
able to be used for comparison and analysis. The environments and
student populations studied differ from one another in many ways,
including original school start times, socioeconomic backgrounds,
race/ethnic diversity, and region of the country. The
Task Force made recommendations based upon the best available research
and interpreted the research data to the best of its ability.
Highlights:
- The Taskforce states that it worked with getting feedback via the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program, a bell times survey and arrival times inbox (I'm not sure what the last one is). However, they were not able to have all that data when they wrote their report.
- The community survey data from both the N2N program and the online survey were unavailable in their entirety due to the timing of data availability. The Task Force recommends that this data should inform the equity analysis that the District uses when making a decision. (p. 11)
- The Task Force reviewed many options for potential schedule changes in February 2015, prior to the bulk of the operational information being available to the Task Force. A two tier option and a modified flip option (that positions K-8 schools in the second tier) were also favored by the Task Force at that time. The Task Force report continues to support additional analysis of these options.
- The Task Force acknowledges the complexities of making any changes and further acknowledges that District Operations were “not of primary significance in the recommendation criteria” used by the Task Force, but are relevant. (p. 9)
- The Taskforce has a great chart system (pages 7-9) to consider impacts like older siblings caring for younger siblings, Special Ed students, school breakfast, etc.
- There were three brief Minority Reports. One was from the SE Seattle Education Coalition who called into question the make-up of the Taskforce in terms of finding minority members. A second was from the Seattle School Nurse Association. They find that one major complaint students have from middle/high school students who visit them is feeling sleepy/tired. They support the Modified Flip but wish the Tier 3 start time was earlier than 9:40 am.
- One Taskforce member, Kathy Katterhagen, believes that the recommendation may affect many more low-income students who struggle already.
Comments
-perplexed
Affect in a negative or positive way? My first thought with the 9:40 start time was more students may skip school if parents are not seeing them off on their way to work in the morning.
-perplexed
-gah
Nobody is claiming that a 9:40 start for middle school students is a good idea. The dstrict told the task force that two tiers was impossible to implement. When pressed, Pegi McEvoy came up with an unbelievably high estimate of the cost and it wasn't on the list of options the task force was allowed to consider.
I think a 9:40 start for middle school is ridiculous - but no more ridiculous than it is for elementary schools now. At least middle school is only three years. I feel for parents stuck with a 9:40 elemtary start for six years.
Ideally, parents should make it clear to the superintendent that we want two tiers. 9:40 is too late for any school to start.
-gah
I disagree--it IS more ridiculous. Middle school is a longer school day, so the same start time results in a much later release time. Add that to the fact that middle school age afterschool activities and practices tend to last longer (e.g., 2 hr sports practice vs. 1 hr more common for elementary), and things become more unworkable. And many middle school students need those afterschool sports to satisfy their PE waiver. I don't see how this will work. It's not like all the afterschool activity providers for this age group can just push start times back a couple hours--they usually have HS age students, and then often adults, lined up next.
HF
Irene
I'm also a firm believer that these non-academic activities are essential to the socio-emotional health of many middle school age kids. Kids no longer get recess once they start middle school, so opportunities to socialize are limited. They arrive, spend all day in classes, then leave. Without the opportunity to connect via sports, my kid would have had an even more miserable and isolating year. Yes, schools should focus on academics. But schools should not get in the way of the rest of life--because there really is more to life than academics for an 11- or 14-yr-old.
But that's obviously just my 2 cents,
HF
Aghast
If they play other SPS schools, maybe games will just be scheduled late enough to ensure they don't miss too much time?
What about games against private schools? I've heard that several private schools in the north part of town aren't planning to make changes to their bell times if SPS does, so they will likely play on the current schedule, which could mean that SPS students have to miss several classes on those game days. How many games per sport per season might that be?
Again, I'm asking to learn and assuming the task force looked at this but haven't really seen it discussed in any detail.
As far as all the concern about sports, I don't understand why they can't just schedule those for after school anyway (4:10 - 5:40...?) Or they could happen before school. My son's PE waiver last year was satisfied by neighborhood rec soccer, which didn't practice until 7:30 - 8:30 pm. Getting home at 9:00 pm was really tough given his super early morning, but we all adjusted.
And I believe the middle school schedule is only 10 minutes longer than the elementary school schedule, so it wouldn't result in a "much later release time" than elementary does now...
NEmom
-no 9:40
I agree the best option is a two tier system, but if they are going to insist on this 3 tier system, it sounds pretty tone deaf for k-8 parents to complain about 9 years of 9:40 start time. Right now, most students have an even worse situation, and if we stay with the status quo will continue to have an even worse situation than the one k-8 parents are complaining is so awful they can't possibly be forced into it. Right now it's 9:40 for 6 years at elementary, and then 3 years at 7:50, right when the late start would be beneficial. The proposed change would improve the lives of so many more students at the more minor cost of relatively few, since for investing the time in elementary, they would get a better 9:40 start for middle school.
-sleeper
But failing that, what we have now is harming more students than the 3 tier solution with k-8s in tier 3, and we should remedy that. In order to keep the sweet second tier spot you have right now, you are making 90% of Seattle students have a worse schedule for their k-8 years than the one proposed for you, in addition to condemning almost all high school students to a worse start time. That's not right either.
-sleeper
The K8 students aren't the problem and if you moved all of the K8 students out of tier 2 this very moment or they disappeared from the equation entirely, it would only help a very small percentage of SPS students - there just aren't that many K8 students. The issue is not a K8 vs. everyone else situation, but that is the lens through which you are seeing it. I'm not sure where your vehemence is from against the K8's, but it isn't serving you well.
...because many students participate in sports and activities that are a city-wide mix of private and public school students, and only happen in the afternoons, at a location other than their neighborhood school.
My high school student does not feel the 7:50 start is all that bad. Really. We've adjusted. Getting home at 3:00 is pretty nice.
-no 9:40
Of course two tiers would be better. Hoping someone else can better daylight the process. I think they are keeping it as out if the public as possible in order to sneak split shift high schools in using this three tier system
-sleeper
Hamilton, for instance, doesn't have a field, so students walk about a mile to either Lower Woodland or Meridian for practice, then walk back to school. Practices are long to allow for this, so afternoon practices would likely shift to 4:30-6:30pm. Meridian Park doesn't have lights though, so that would be an additional challenge for part of the year. Morning practices would need to end in time for for those who get school breakfast to do so, so would probably need to be something like 7:15-9:15am. That's early!
I know it's not one of the options they presented, but can someone remind me why high school students couldn't take the latest shift instead, since they also typically have later practices, later curfews, less reliance on parents for transportation, more flexibility (e.g., Running Start), etc.?
But hey, my kids will likely be done with middle school by the time SPS implements something like this, so I'm all for the greater good and nicer high school start times. I'm not advocating for better middle school times on behalf of my own kids, but other kids like them. With a narrow range of grades, middle school was always doomed to lose out in the voting.
HF
NEmom
Our school day is 20 min more than the grade school, including the younger kids. So that really makes for a long school day with a 9:40 start and a 4:10 end. Many of those young kids are going to be woken up early one way or another for before school care and then basically you have eaten into family time in the evening because they will still need an early bedtime.
It may be a good plan for some but it's really awful for others.