Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@wolfrivermedia.com
Parents in the Shawano School District will be able to breathe easier after an announcement this week that school start times would remain the same for the 2015-16 school year.
Superintendent Gary Cumberland reported during Monday’s School Board meeting that the ad-hoc committee felt that making changes in May that would take effect in September would be too much of a burden on parents who needed to adjust work and child care schedules.
“They want to come up with a recommendation and then give the schools and the community an opportunity to adjust,” Cumberland said.
The committee plans to meet on May 19 to continue developing a recommendation, but the School Board will likely not make a decision until later in the year, Cumberland said.
The committee hopes to reach out to parents during the schools’ teacher meet and greets in August.
“They want to come back with exact numbers, not just here is the start time and here is the end time,” Cumberland said.
The committee in March recommended delaying start times by 30 minutes, with Shawano Community High School and Shawano Community Middle School starting at 8 a.m. and Hillcrest Primary School and Olga Brener Intermediate School starting at 8:45 a.m.
The impetus behind the change was research showing that teenagers have difficulty focusing on their early morning classes. A later start time might improve academic performance, proponents argued.
Some parents were skeptical about the recommendation. Many of them were less concerned about the impact on teenagers and more concerned about how it could affect the younger children.
Some parents also said the change would hurt them financially if they had to arrange new child care schedules.
The committee looked at one uniform start time for all schools, but that would require an additional six buses and cost an estimated $200,000 annually.