Talking Points

The District verified and validated the students’ needs for more sleep in the Challenge Success survey, including data that the majority of Barrington High School students receive less than 7 hours of sleep per night.  Despite American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommendations of the following:

Children six to 12 years of age should sleep nine to 12 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep eight to 10 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

Challenges identified by the community were addressed, last year, by the Ad Hoc School Start Time Implementation Committee.  The following solutions were found:

Sports Challenges:

Game schedules accommodated easily with other districts
For long distance travel games, separating JV and Varsity teams so students are home at a reasonable hour (earlier than with current start times)
No sports team would be cut
The Executive Director of the YMCA stated that the Y swim program would absolutely be preserved, with no reduction in practice time. The BHS Swim Team could practice and “would be drying off their hair by 7pm”
George Finn, Athletic Director, reported available Ice Hockey rink time at 4:10pm

Before School Care:

Two vendors, YMCA and Springboard, are currently going through the unexpectedly lengthy licensing process with the State of RI to provide onsite before school care.
BHS students will be allowed access to the school one hour before classes begin

Teacher Accessibility for Extra Help:

Teachers will be able to offer extra help before or after school, depending on what works best for their individual schedules.

Transportation Costs:

The cost of transportation in a tough budget year was the reason given to not move forward with healthy start times in 2017.  However, no data from Ocean State Transportation were provided to validate the needed costs.
The District was provided a transportation analysis that suggested that school start time change would not require any more than their current 11 buses.
Many towns have implemented school start time change without additional buses, as it’s the same number of students being transported to the same number of schools.
Most Districts assign students to buses, provide opt outs for those who do not take the bus, and are addressing bus inefficiencies to allow school start time change to occur without additional buses.  (This was done in East Greenwich which has significantly reduced their transportation costs as well as in Biddeford, Maine, a district consulted with by Mr. Messore around implementation challenges)

The possible costs for transportation are:

$55,330 for an increased hour per day of bus monitors ( which includes an additional hour per day for 10 monitors plus SS and Medicare costs)
$7,000 a year for the long distance sports events where Junior Varsity and Varsity would need different game days.
This totals approximately $62,000 of a 50 Million dollar budget or .12% of the budget, yes, that is (point) .12 percent. That is approximately an increase of $10 a year per average household (based on a $400,000 home). 

Additional Resources

Understanding Healthier School Start Times [Slideshow]
Myths and Misconceptions

Adolescent Sleep Wake Cycle (AASM)