Howard County Public Schools Bell Times for 2023/24 School Year

 

Anne Arundel Co. Public Schools: most elementary schools will start at 8:00 a.m., middle schools will start at 9:15 a.m., and high schools will start at 8:30 a.m.

 https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/anne-arundel-co-schools-shares-preliminary-start-times-for-2022-23-school-year?fbclid=IwAR2iV9ff-b1MB0yq4tlQzYa1dNR-MDaM1lHSCWc8_elQSwa78WY_6Gpdu54

Classes To Start Later In Day Beginning Next Year In Anne Arundel

 

School start times were pushed back in Anne Arundel County. Classes will start later in the morning beginning next fall.

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — Classes will start later in the morning beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, the Anne Arundel County Board of Education announced Thursday. Officials think this will create healthier start times for students when the policy takes effect next fall. Classes will then start:

• between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. in elementary schools
• between 8:30 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. in middle schools
• at 8:30 a.m. in high schools

Dismissal times will also get pushed back. Exact school hours won't be known for several months.

"This has been years in the making," school board President Melissa Ellis said in a press release. "There is more work to be done between now and then, but the certainty is that change is coming."

The board of education in March contracted Prismatic Services, Inc. to study school start times and the effects of a potential shift on bus schedules...

https://patch.com/maryland/annapolis/classes-start-later-day-beginning-next-year-anne-arundel?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_term=schools&utm_campaign=autopost&utm_content=annapolis&fbclid=IwAR14pkBC_JtOVr_HZGioAHoeQmMhYd2cpElP1t3lL72Gwq78EBwViBc7YPo

California becomes first state to mandate later start times at public schools

California is set to become the first state to require later start times for some public schools after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation into law Sunday.

The new law will be implemented over time and will eventually mandate middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Times.

The new start times must be in effect by the start of the 2022-2023 school year or when a school’s three-year collective bargaining agreement with its employees comes to an end, depending on which comes first.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino (D) applauded Newsom’s signing of the bill, saying research has shown later start times benefit students.

"Newsom displayed a heartwarming and discerning understanding of the importance of objective research and exercised strong leadership as he put our children’s health and welfare ahead of institutional bureaucracy resistant to change,” Portantino said, according to the news outlet.

“Generations of children will come to appreciate this historic day and our governor for taking bold action. Our children face a public health crisis. Shifting to a later start time will improve academic performance and save lives because it helps our children be healthier,” he added.

A legislative analysis from July found about half the public schools in the state will be forced to push back their start times by 30 minutes or less in order to be compliant with the new law...

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/465624-california-becomes-first-state-to-mandate-later-start-time-at-public?fbclid=IwAR27AIsM-8JBqWq31h5TgGRd2HaHhi9eoQHxnGM3wmW3N7-8pp29p0UrA20

Middle, high schools can’t start earlier than 8:30 a.m. under newly approved California legislation

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers want to bar middle school and high schools from starting before 8:30 a.m., but the final decision on when the first bell should ring will rest with Gov. Jerry Brown.

Following an intense debate over what has been a local school district decision, the Senate and Assembly approved SB328 by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge (Los Angeles County).

The bill would require all public middle and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., including charter schools, with supporters arguing that research shows teens natural sleep patterns keep them up late and lead to sleep deprivation when schools have early start times. Research shows teens do better in school, have lower rates of depression and anxiety and fewer car accidents when school start times start later...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Middle-high-schools-can-t-start-earlier-than-13198460.php?utm_campaign=facebook-premium&utm_source=CMS+Sharing+Button&utm_medium=social

85 percent of Boston schools will get new start times

In a move that will scramble the daily schedules of families across the city, nearly 85 percent of Boston’s 125 schools will have new start times next fall, school officials announced Thursday night.
The changes aim to let more high school students sleep in and more elementary school students get out before sunset. Boston now joins a small but growing number of school systems in Massachusetts and across the nation that have pushed high school start times later in an effort to get students to school well rested and alert. The hope is that students will perform better academically.
To that end, some 94 percent of students in grades 7 through 12 will begin classes after 8 a.m. next fall, up from 26 percent this year. Among them: students at Boston Latin Academy in the Grove Hall area near the Dorchester-Roxbury line, which will go from having one of the earliest start times, 7:20 a.m., to one of the latest, 8:30 a.m...

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/07/eighty-five-percent-boston-schools-will-get-new-start-times/jeBUcNQGovviiRDzDCv8ZP/story.html?p1=Article_Inline_Bottom

Education study: Attendance, graduation rates may match the science that teenagers need more sleep

Later school start times catch on nationwide

Many district administrators seem to agree that teenagers need more sleep. A new study released in February indicates that attendance and graduation rates may match the science, too.

Published in Sleep Health, the journal of the National Sleep Foundation, the study includes data for 30,000 students in 29 high schools from eight districts across seven states.
Two years after a delayed start was implemented at these high schools, average attendance rates increased from 90 percent to 94 percent, and graduation rates increased from 79 percent to 88 percent...

https://www.districtadministration.com/article/later-school-start-times-catch-nationwide?utm_content=buffer7a18a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

NBC4: Teachers Union Proposes Changing Daily Schedule for Students in Montgomery County

The union representing Montgomery County, Maryland, public school teachers plans to formally recommend the school district change its daily schedule for students, shifting the start times for elementary, middle and high school students.

The Montgomery County Education Association, which represents more than 12,000 educators, shared three proposals for new school day schedules with its large membership county-wide.

Source: Teachers Union Proposes Changing Daily Schedule for Students in Montgomery County, Md. | NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Teachers-Union-Proposes-Changing-Daily-Schedule-for-Students-in-Montgomery-County-Md-392777251.html#ixzz4JiPMilqf
Follow us: @nbcwashington on Twitter | NBCWashington on Facebook

 

In these Charleston, S.C., schools, children are seen, and heard, and always active

CHARLESTON, S.C. — David Spurlock is 63 years old, a former baseball and football coach with a bum shoulder and bad back and right now he’s busy planning a jailbreak. He has spent a lifetime walking the hallways, classrooms and athletics fields all across Charleston, his home town. Those classic images of school-aged children sitting still in desks organized into neat rows? Spurlock calls it “educational incarceration.”

“We put kids in a 2x2 cell and dare them to move: ‘Keep your feet on floor and hands up where I can see them,’” says Spurlock, the coordinator of health, wellness and physical education for the Charleston County School District. “That sounds like being incarcerated to me.”

The educational model is broken, Spurlock says, and the key to fixing it is applying some of the most basic principles of sport and exercise. Students in some Charleston area schools sit on desks that double as exercise equipment, they enroll in “advanced PE,” receive regular yoga instruction and visit specially equipped learning labs each week where the line between education and physical education disappears entirely.
“If you went to anybody who’s in education, you say PE versus instruction, they say instruction every time,” he says. “But what we’re trying to show is that more movement equals better grades, better behavior, better bodies.”

 continues at this link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/10/20/educational-movement/

Fairfax, Montgomery officials to share experience delaying school start times

Representatives from school districts in Virginia and Maryland will share insights into delaying high school start times with the Anne Arundel County school board Tuesday.
Fairfax County is spending $5 million to push back school start times by nearly an hour this school year, from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m. Middle school students, however, start school at 7:30 a.m., which is about 10 to 20 minutes earlier than last year. And elementary school schedules remain the same.
The Montgomery County school board delayed high school and middle school start times by 20 minutes and elementary school start times by 10 minutes. High schools there open at 7:45 a.m., middle schools 30 minutes later and elementary schools between 9 and 9:25 a.m.
The Anne Arundel Board of Education will conduct a workshop to hear about the logistics of pushing back school start and dismissal times from Jeff Platenberg, the assistant superintendent for facilities and transportation for Fairfax County Public Schools, and Todd Watkins, director of transportation for Montgomery County Public Schools...

 http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/schools/ph-ac-cn-schoolstart-fairfax-1018-20151019-story.html

CDC: Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight; not engage in daily physical activity; suffer from depressive symptoms; engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs; and perform poorly in school.

School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students — United States, 2011–12 School Year

Please note: An erratum has been published for this article. To view the erratum, please click here.
Weekly 
August 7, 2015 / 64(30);809-813

Anne G. Wheaton, PhD1; Gabrielle A. Ferro, PhD1; Janet B. Croft, PhD1

Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight (1); not engage in daily physical activity (2); suffer from depressive symptoms (2); engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs (2); and perform poorly in school (3). However, insufficient sleep is common among high school students, with less than one third of U.S. high school students sleeping at least 8 hours on school nights (4). In a policy statement published in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urged middle and high schools to modify start times as a means to enable students to get adequate sleep and improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life (5). AAP recommended that "middle and high schools should aim for a starting time of no earlier than 8:30 a.m." (5). To assess state-specific distributions of public middle and high school start times and establish a pre-recommendation baseline, CDC and the U.S. Department of Education analyzed data from the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Among an estimated 39,700 public middle, high, and combined schools* in the United States, the average start time was 8:03 a.m. Overall, only 17.7% of these public schools started school at 8:30 a.m. or later. The percentage of schools with 8:30 a.m. or later start times varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to more than three quarters of schools in Alaska (76.8%) and North Dakota (78.5%). A school system start time policy of 8:30 a.m. or later provides teenage students the opportunity to achieve the 8.5–9.5 hours of sleep recommended by AAP (5) and the 8–10 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation (6)...

 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6430a1.htm?s_cid=mm6430a1_e

Exlusive E-Mails Between Starr and BOE During Last 3 Months: Bell Times, Sexual Abuse, Blair Ewing School, Minority Scholars, Purple Line, Washington Post, Outdoor Ed

  

   2015 MPIA April 13 by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Contrast Montgomery’s wishy-washy approach... with that of Fairfax County

...Contrast Montgomery’s wishy-washy approach, including Superintendent Joshua P. Starr’s mixed signals, with that of Fairfax County, which figured out a way to start high school between 8 a.m. and 8:10 a.m. There, Superintendent Karen Garza made clear she was committed to change, expert help was enlisted in fashioning a solution and board members based their decision on facts rather than anecdotes. Moreover, instead of having to contend with a teachers union more concerned about the convenience of its members, Fairfax officials had a real partner in teachers. “It will be a little uncomfortable for some, but ultimately it will be much more comfortable for our children and ultimately that is what our priority is,” said Steven Greenburg, president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers. The Montgomery County Education Association, which released a suspect survey on the eve of the vote, should take a cue...

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/alarm-bells-over-school-times-in-montgomery/2015/02/14/18e7b662-b230-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html

WTOP: Montgomery Co. votes to change bell times

Beginning in August of 2015, high school students will start class at 7:45 a.m., middle school will be delayed 20 minutes and elementary schools will have 10 minutes added to the day for either recess or lunch...

 http://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2015/02/montgomery-county-votes-change-bell-times/

MoCo High Schools Will Start 20 Minutes Later Next School Year

http://www.bethesdanow.com/2015/02/10/moco-high-schools-will-start-20-minutes-later-next-school-year/

“Sleep in Protest” For Later School Start Times

Montgomery County students, parents and their supporters held a “Sleep In” afternoon protest in front of the school system’s headquarters in Rockville on Feb. 9.
“Save Our Sleep In MCPS” gathered supporters with blankets, sleeping bags and  together they shouted, “What do we want?” and, replied, “right now.”

 http://www.mymcmedia.org/sleep-in-protest-for-later-school-start-times/

Fox5: Students, parents hold 'Sleep-In' protest; push for later school start times

DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/28061295/students-parents-hold-sleep-in-protest-push-for-later-school-start-times#.VNlUT1HZjSh.twitter

Parents voice overwhelming support for delaying high school start times

http://www.thesentinel.com/mont/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1579:parents-voice-overwhelming-support-for-delaying-high-school-start-times&Itemid=766

Grab your sleeping bags

and join in next week.  Monday 3:30 pm at Carver (850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville).

Why?

This You Tube video says it all.

WPOST: Montgomery parents plead for later high school start times

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/montgomery-parents-plead-for-later-high-school-start-times/2015/01/23/db66312a-a2f2-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html?hpid=z4