Holliston Schools made the announcement this year, and it will start NEXT year – school start times will be changing. Local Town Pages sat down with Stacey Raffi, Chair of the Holliston School Committee, and Cynthia Listewnik. Both of them worked on a subcommittee designed to study school start times (which also included Martha Devoe).
“We really want people to understand that this is a positive change that will benefit all students K-12,” says Raffi.
Next year (NOT THIS YEAR), middle and high school students in Holliston will head to school 40 minutes later in the day, at 8:10 instead of 7:30 a.m. Placentino elementary students will start at usual times, 8:50 a.m., while Miller elementary kids will start at 7:30 a.m., 40 minutes earlier.
“Our stake in the ground is to put students first,” says Listewnik, who says she understands that the transition might be inconvenient for parents at times. “I have three kids with three different bus schedules, and I get that that’s going to be challenging, and we want to partner with parents to help them figure that out, but we also want them to use their village, to say, ‘Want me to get your kid from the bus?’ That happens, and it should happen, but the argument that it is inconvenient is not good enough for me. The science is irrefutable that these kids need more sleep. We didn’t have one dissenting school committee member.”
“And it’s not just more sleep, it’s better sleep,” adds Raffi.
The sleep time subcommittee was part of a larger, 40+ member stress task force for Holliston Schools. Recent studies of Holliston teens made as part of a bi-annual study conducted by the Metrowest Health Foundation showed that stress levels among the town’s students were on the rise.
“We just keep seeing an increase in the number of students reporting high levels of stress, anxiety, depression, drug use and alcohol use, so Brad (Jackson) really wanted to sit down and figure out what we can do about this. We looked at homework – we have a homework policy now where there’s homework-free vacations, and a lot of changes have been made in elementary school where students have an opportunity to move during class and when you walk down the hallway, there are posters that show the kids how to do different breathing and stretching – mindfulness,” says Raffi. Recess times were also increased from 20 to 25 minutes.
“So for the past two and a half years, the district has been working so hard to implement approaches to these recommendations,” says Raffi.
“This is not like a silver bullet. This is one more cog to create a better educational environment for our students – to decrease their levels of stress and anxiety,” says Cynthia, who notes the school committee is very concerned about the increased use of vaping among students as self-medication.
The sleep subcommittee, then first consulted Dr. Chris Landrigan, the Resident Director at Children’s Hospital, who came to talk to the committee.
“We linked his presentation right on our website,” says Stacey.
Cynthia adds that most recent statistics from the Metrowest Health Foundation’s Adolescent Health Survey notes that only 27.1% of Holliston High School students get eight or more hours of sleep a night, down from 31.4% in 2014. She adds that it’s not all because of social media, as that has not increased significantly—nor is it from gaming, although a higher percentage of boys than girls do that. Still, more students are spending three hours or more for screen time NOT for school or homework on a given school day than a few years ago—43.3% in 2018, up from 40.2% in 2014.
Significant shares of Holliston students do homework for three hours or more on school days outside of school—although that has dropped 27.8% in 2018 from 39.3% in 2014, and a good majority of them (61.6%) in 2018, participate in a volunteer or community service activity for three or more days a week.
The sleep subcommittee then began to whiteboard different scenarios. They also met with Sharon schools, that made changes to the sleep schedule in 2010, as well as Ashland, which just changed in the 2017-18 school year, to hear about challenges those districts faced when they incorporated later start times.
“In Ashland, I think what they would say that kids were more ready to learn, especially in that first period class, but kids who are chronically tardy are still chronically tardy. It was an adjustment the first couple of months, but after the first semester, (administration) heard nothing about it. Their impression was kids are coming in better prepared for school,” says Cynthia, “and one of the hopes is they’ll be able to do better academically as well. Some districts they’ve shown you can get a 2-3 percent increase in academic performance.”
The subcommittee also found that changing start times can yield a better performance among all students, without expensive new models or curriculum changes.
“Across the board it’s more equitable. It’s going to help all students, not just the athletes, not just the music kids, not just the drama kids. This is affecting seven grades of students. For the last seven years of education, they’re going to have that education that’s better for their circadian rhythms,” says Listewnik.
The biggest backlash the school committee has had are of those parents of Miller kids in grades 3-5, whose parents believe it’s unfair their kids should have to go to school at 7:30.
“We’re leaving our youngest learners at 8:50,” says Cynthia. “They don’t even know how to tie their shoes, and the thought of trying to organize a five-year-old to get to school at 7:30 is hard. Also, younger kids might be just finding diagnoses of ADHD or other learning issues. That was the reason we left Placentino alone. We’ve also found that 3rd-5th grade, those kids are larks, they’re not night owls. They’re typically up at 6 a.m., rain or shine.”
Some parents argue that research shows that starting even later is better, and that new start times aren’t enough. “We had to compromise,” says Raffi, who believes the change will be for the better.
All told, the committee created four different scenarios, including one with no change. Then they had a local market research analyst create a survey for parents.
“The support for it decreased significantly when there were budgetary considerations,” says Raffi. Parents supported later times, but “don’t increase bus fees, don’t increase taxes, and don’t reduce my programs,” she says.
Another issue they found was that it would be impossible to dismiss 1,500 students out of Placentino and Miller at one time, as the parking lot was not designed for that.
“We weren’t able to figure out how we could safely dismiss the two at the same time,” says Cynthia.
“And we didn’t feel there was any way to increase our budget,” says Raffi.
It was the Miller School principal, say the two, who suggested putting 3rd-5th first, noting that logistically, it works to have the two elementary schools separate as they share resources.
The subcommittee followed up with another survey in April—and then the vote to change took place in May. The two note that despite the survey and subsequent newsletter, only one parent came to the meeting with the vote.
“We feel that this is the best solution that will positively impact students pre-K through 12, and we are here to make decisions for the benefit of our students,” says Raffi.
Following are links provided to Local Town Pages regarding some of the research the subcommittee did prior to the Holliston School Committee’s decision. More background and presentations can also be found on their site, at http://www.holliston.k12.ma.us/home/school-committee/school-start-time-s... :
Dr. Judith Owens Children’s Hospital
Presentation about sleep in adolescents to Northborough & Southborough schools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpCcAA2T75o
Here’s Dr. Owen’s slide presentation to Wayland Public Schools.
https://www.wayland.k12.ma.us/UserFiles/Servers/Server_1036352/File/Scho...
Cost benefit analysis
on start times
https://www.brookings.edu/research/organizing-schools-to-improve-student...
Long term economic benefits of delaying school start times from the Rand Corporation
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2109.html
Outcomes for younger students
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721815000522
https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/06/14/wayland-start-times-change