Discussion for Possible Action on Start Times on Guilford Agenda

GUILFORD, CT - The school board has been studying the issue of whether to move school start times back - specifically high school start times back - for years in an effort to give teenage kids more sleep before school starts.

On Monday night, on the Board of Education’s agenda the board has on its agenda: “Discussion for possible action” on school start times.

The Board of Education on May 23rd held a well attended special community meeting to review a long-awaited report - and get feedback - on whether to start high school later in the morning so that teens could get more sleep.

The following weeek the full Board of Education reviewed the findings and input at the special meeting - and start mapping out the next course of action on the matter.

Board of Education Chairman William Bloss had this to say about the issue - and the special meeting.

“The issue more or less on the table now is whether to move the start time of the high school from 7:25 to 7:40 for 2018-19, and to move the start times for the middle and elementary schools 10 minutes later for each.

“There is an interim report from the task force on our website that summarizes its recommendations. There are some questions that we are trying to get answers to regarding schedules in other towns which may be useful to consider.

“I thought that the (community) meeting on was very helpful to hear community perspectives and I do believe that people understand how complex this issue is, and changes at one school undoubtedly affect other schools.”

School officials have said there is some time pressure to get the school start time issue resolved to get all the necessary moving parts in place before the start of the 2018-2019 school year.