Will later start time benefit Shawano students?

The Shawano School Board could decide March 16 whether to delay school start times by 30 minutes for the 2015-16 school year.

On Monday, an ad hoc committee that has met for six months recommended moving the start times back for all schools, even though the change is intended to help middle school and high school students the most.

If approved, the start time for Shawano Community High School and Shawano Community Middle School would be 8 a.m. instead of 7:30 a.m., and Olga Brener Intermediate School, Hillcrest Primary School and LEADS Charter School would start at 8:40 a.m. instead of 8:10 a.m.

The school day would end 40 minutes later than now, to include the 10-minute increase in class time approved by the board in February when the 2015-16 school calendar was adopted. Classes at secondary schools would end at 3:10 p.m., while elementary school students would be dismissed at 3:55 p.m.

The proposal is not ideal, according to Matty Mathison, a retired physical education teacher who sat on the ad hoc committee, but it is closer to what is best.

“As we continued to do research, we found more and more reasons to change the school start time to later,” Mathison said.

Mathison noted that a panel of Shawano and Bonduel high school students said they could easily access alcohol and prescription drugs after school let out and before parents got home from work. Later release times would cut down on the time students would be on their own, Mathison said.

Mindy Frimodig, a family physician at ThedaCare, said that, when she started practicing in Shawano more than seven years ago, she saw a number of adolescent patients with generalized fatigue who complained about having difficulty concentrating during their first-period classes. Some parents were even asking for doctor’s notes to excuse their children from early classes.

“At that point, I said to just tell them to go to bed earlier,” Frimodig said.

Once she started doing research, however, Frimodig discovered studies that say teenagers are wired to go to bed and rise later than most adults and younger children.

At the onset of adolescence, the secretion of melatonin — the hormone that allows humans to sleep — is delayed, Frimodig said.

“It delays the sleep-wake cycle by about two hours from middle childhood,” she said. “After puberty, they cannot fall asleep as early as they used to, and they cannot fall asleep as easily as they used to.”

Teens typically fall asleep around 11 p.m. and awaken around 8 a.m., she said. The current start time at the middle and high schools is not healthy, especially with some students having to be at the bus stop around 6 a.m.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 60 percent of teens are sleep deprived for one reason or another.

Chronic sleep loss in adolescents also tends to increase the risk of depression, motor vehicle accidents, deficits in learning, poor impulse control and other health issues, Frimodig said.

Experts recommend middle and high schools start at 8:30 a.m., according to Frimodig.

“I appreciate the hardship that this will put on families,” she said, noting her family’s schedule will also be impacted. “This is what is best for the kids.”

Judy Holzmann, a spokesperson for Johnson Bus Company, said the proposal would not have much financial impact on busing. There could be logistical problems, however, in planning adequate busing on days when athletic teams have to travel to away games, she said.

School Board President Tyler Schmidt, who also sat on the committee, said the idea of flip-flopping the elementary and secondary school start times was examined, but school districts the committee contacted said the idea did not work.

The committee also examined having all schools start at the same time, but it would require six additional buses daily, costing the district an additional $200,000 annually, according to Schmidt.