By Brian Early [email protected]
PORTSMOUTH — The School Board voted 8 to 1 to start middle and high school later in the morning starting next school year.
The impetus for the change is to align the school start times with sleep science that suggests adolescents shift their sleep times during adolescence and naturally stay up later and sleep in later.
At a School Board forum on the topic in April, Erin Hiley Sharp, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of New Hampshire called it “sleep phasing.” “Asking a teen to go bed at 10 p.m. is like asking an adult to go to bed at 7 or 8 p.m. That’s where the brain is in the sleep cycle,” Hiley Sharp said. “Waking a teen at 7 a.m. is biologically similar as waking up an adult at 4 a.m.”
Poll: What’s the future for later school start times?
November 30, 2016
The vote for later start times likely would have been unanimous had there been a clear path of how the School Department would pay for the approximate $164,000 cost for buses and bus monitors to implement the later start time. School Board member Nancy Clayburgh dissented because of budget fears.
“I don’t want the money to come out of our budget,” Clayburgh said. “When I see $164,000, all I see is three teachers. To me, it’s big sacrifice.” She wanted to be assured the City Council would provide supplemental money to cover the cost of the buses. An amendment she put forth would have made the later start times dependent on whether or not the City Council approved the additional money. It failed 2 to 7, with Clayburgh and Patrick Ellis voting in favor.
School Board Chair Leslie Stevens urged those to consider the policy separate from the cost. “Right now, we are seeking what is best,” she said.
The School Department currently utilizes 13 buses in the staggered schedule that allows for multiple bus runs. With the change, the district would add three buses and intermix the ridership ages for an additional cost of $150,000; the monitors would cost approximately an additional $14,000. While earlier this year the School Board had considered a cost neutral plan by flipping middle and high school start times with the elementary schools, there was substantial pushback from elementary school parents who wanted those start times to remain the same.
While the School Board will have to figure out the additional money, there will also be an additional cost to School Administrative Unit 50, which encompasses Greenland, New Castle, Newington and Rye that tuition into Portsmouth High School. SAU 50 School Board member Ann Mayer who is the non-voting representative to the Portsmouth School Board, reminded the board that other communities would have increased costs for their buses, which she estimated to be between $150,000 to $200,000.
“We don’t have a city council to fall back on. This comes directly out of our tax rate,” she said, noting that it’s possible the SAU would have to reduce programming to pay for the cost. “We are really hoping that this is best practice and that our students will benefit from this.”
SAU 50 Superintendent Salvatore Petralia sat in the audience during deliberation. While he acknowledged that finding the funding would be a challenge, “It’s in the best interest of the kids,” he said.
