Rise and Shine

For some years now, members of the public have asked the Hillsborough Township School Board to consider changing the start time at the high school from 7:30 to 8:30 or even later. They cite studies purported to show that students get more sleep, perform better in school, and have better overall health when beginning school later in the morning. 

I confess that while I was on the board I was skeptical of the benefits of later start times - and having researched the issue I remain skeptical. But that doesn't mean I didn't work on the problem. The problem being - what would the district do if the state were to mandate 8:30 start times? A little over a year ago, at the April 20, 2022 Operations Committee meeting, I discussed at some length my ideas. At that point - even though board members had been nodding their heads as residents came to the podium on this issue - the board was waiting for the administration to lead with some proposals. None were forthcoming. The next day I sent an email to the members of the committee, the acting superintendent, and the business administrator summarizing my proposal. Below are the contents of the email for your consideration.

Adjustment of High School Start Times

In consideration of the fact that the NJ legislature may in the near future mandate a later high school start time, potentially as late as 8:30, I have put together some thoughts on how this might be accomplished while also addressing other issues.

• The length of the school day. Currently, the high school day is approximately 30 minutes longer than the other schools in the district. Besides the inherent inequity for our staff, this also leads to transportation issues.
• The lunch period is too short. For students wishing to purchase lunch, there is often not enough time to get in line, make a purchase, find a seat, and eat.
• In our current system lab sciences are tied to PE periods so that students can miss PE once per cycle to have a double period of science. This causes scheduling conflicts.
• Short class periods, very short periods split by lunch, and frequent, short passing periods.

It should be self-evident that a change of the school dismissal from 2:30 to 3:30 would have a severely detrimental effect on participation in athletics and other after-school activities, including employment. If the school day is shortened by 30 minutes, school can begin at a state-mandated 8:30 and dismiss at a reasonable 3:00. This would seem to be a good compromise. Also, when every school in the district has the same length of day, transportation routes should be able to be more efficiently tiered.

I propose dividing the 6.5-hour schedule into A Days and B Days. Essentially classes would meet every other day. In this plan, instruction periods would be approximately 80 minutes long; passing would be 4 or 5 minutes, and lunch periods approximately 37 minutes.

The daily bell schedule might look something like this:

8:30-8:40 Homeroom

8:45-10:05 Period 1

10:10-11:30 Period 2

11:34-12:12 Period 3 Lunch

12:16-12:53 Period 4 Lunch

12:57-1:35 Period 5 Lunch

1:40-3:00 Period 6

Classes would be in periods 1, 2, 3-4, 4-5, 3-5, and 6. Classes during 3-5 would be split by lunch. The 80-minute period for most of the day means that any day can be a lab day. This will divorce lab periods from PE. It also opens up the possibility of making PE a semester (half-year) course that can be taken during a different period in the spring than in the fall, thereby better accommodating the scheduling of other semester courses.

During this technological age, an A/B schedule is eminently doable, if not preferable. In years and decades past, it was imperative to receive instruction from a teacher each day, as the face to face instruction time was the primary means of communication. Now, students have access to online resources from the teacher and others and do not need to see the instructor each day.

There will be some challenges. Can you do lunch in three periods? Kathy Major has talked about a plan to utilize outdoor space for lunch so perhaps that could be an option. Or maybe period 2 would need to be split creating one more lunch period (10:53-11:30) and one more split instruction period.

Would students take 8 courses or 7? Even with 90 fewer work hours per year, teachers might have an objection to teaching 6 classes compared to 5. So perhaps students would take 3 classes on A Day and 4 on B Day or vice versa, (with teachers having three classes one day and two on the other). Students could be assigned to the cafeteria for study hall during periods 1, 2, or 6 on the day they have 3 classes. In any case, some modeling would need to be done to cover various scenarios.

 

I hope this serves to illuminate the suggestions I made at the recent Operations/Finance meeting during the discussion of later school start times.