Trenton looks to move high school start to 7:30 a.m.
TRENTON >> City high school students may have to wake up bright and early next school year.
The district is considering to change the start time for high school students to 7:30 a.m. to deal with its busing safety issues.
Middle school students would also start 20 minutes earlier at 8 a.m.
The proposed change has staff and parents panicking due to the impacts it could have on the district’s students.
Studies have shown that earlier start times have negative impacts on students.
Trenton already boasts one of the worst chronic absenteeism rates in the state, coupled with subpar graduation rates that currently hover around 66 percent.
Critics say both those stats would plummet if the district enacted earlier start times.
The Trenton teachers and supervisors unions spoke against the change at Monday’s school board meeting. The board was supposed to take action on the measure on Monday, but tabled the vote until a special meeting scheduled for Tuesday after hearing complaints from the community.
“Our children have different responsibilities that make it very difficult for them to get to school, especially high school students — even at 8 a.m. — because they’re responsible for younger siblings and some of them work at night,” Trenton Education Association President Naomi Johnson-Lafleur said Wednesday. “There are a million different reasons why students have a challenge of being able to come to school at 7:30 a.m. Our students’ reality is a lot of different than some of the people in the surrounding suburban areas.”
The district recently sent a letter to parents explaining the proposed change. Trenton Public Schools outlined in the letter that it hired an outside contractor to conduct an audit due to its busing issues, which includes a handful of documented sex and physical assaults on buses over the past year.
The company recommended that the district implement a “tiered busing” approach.
“We are aware that this change may be an inconvenience for some,” the letter reads. “However, our information clearly shows that the benefits outweigh the challenges. By implementing tiered busing, we will be transporting elementary, middle and high school students separately. This change will allow for ageappropriate interactions, reduce the number of opportunities for inappropriate incidents, and reduce the time students spend on buses.”
Trenton’s proposed earlier start times go against the grain of information published on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website.
The agency found that the average start time for 39,700 public middle and high schools in the country was 8:03 a.m. That’s 33 minutes later than Trenton’s slated start time.
The CDC also outlined the effects of earlier start times for adolescents. The CDC found that adoles-
cents 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
• Perform poorly in school
In contrast, the CDC said students who get 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night “can improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life.”
“The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that middle and high schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later to allow students the opportunity to get the recommended amount of sleep on school nights, about 8.5-9.5 hours,” the CDC states. “Insufficient sleep is common among high school students and is associated with several health risks including being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using drugs, as well as poor academic performance.”
Trenton’s proposed start times for the 2017-18 school year are:
High schools 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Middle schools 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Elementary schools 8:45 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Trenton Central High School students currently arrive to school at 8:20 a.m., which would mean a 50-minute change next year. This year, middle school students arrive at school at 8:20 a.m. and elementary school students start at 8:45 a.m., so that time would remain unchanged.
“The problem is, right now, many of our children get to school at 9 a.m., so why would you push it back to 7:30 a.m. and miss a whole block of learning,” the Trenton teachers union president said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Johnson-Lafleur believes the district should look at a two-tiered busing approach to bus middle and high school students together at 8 a.m. and elementary students at 8:45 a.m.
After ending a contract with a busing vendor this year, Trenton schools will purchase a handful of buses and hire bus drivers to have its own small fleet to transport students. The district said in its letter to parents that the tiered busing approach and the additional buses “will lead to a safer and more efficient way of transporting our children.”
“Additionally, now that our dismissal times are better aligned with extra-curricular programs, students will no longer have to miss valuable instructional time to attend events,” the district’s administration touted.
The district asked for parents to provide input online at https://goo.gl/ joDhtL.
Trenton school board President Gene Bouie did not return a message seeking comment.