As Lincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103 board members discussed their options for possible later school start times, they learned how the debate already has started inside district classrooms between teachers and students.
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During a board meeting Tuesday, parents, students and representatives with the district’s teacher union addressed why and why not board members should push back classroom start times, a change other school districts in Lake County have adopted recently.
Members of the Lincolnshire-Prairie View Teachers Association urged board members to reject the later start idea for various reasons, but some parents shared how teachers in the district have told students how later start times would be bad for them — a revelation that irked Board President Gary Gordon.
“That, to me, is inappropriate,” Gordon said, adding how he doesn’t know for sure whether teachers are telling students about later start times. “If we have conversations and issues to address as adults, I hope we can do that without involving the children.”
Although the board didn’t make a decision on later start times Tuesday, members did reveal possible options following their own research on the issue. Numerous sleep-science studies have said teenagers and younger kids perform better at school when they’re allowed to sleep longer.
Members of the district’s teacher union declined to speak about whether teachers have been trying to influence students on the issue of later start times at District 103.
But Kristine Rickert, a representative of the Lincolnshire-Prairie View Teachers Association, detailed a list of problems that could happen if their students ultimately have to end their day later in the afternoon.
Older children going through a later school day may not be able to supervise younger siblings before their parents come home from work, she warned.
Students also might have to walk home in the dark during the winter months, while parents who drive their junior high students to and from games would face worse rush-hour traffic, she said.
Michelle Rivkin, a mother with children in Daniel Wright Junior High, said she was alarmed after she started hearing that a few teachers at school were using classroom time to sway students about later start times.
She pointed to the numerous studies done on later start times as reasons why District 103 should make the change.
“Some (teachers) have been telling their kids both the good and the bad,” Rivkin said. “Some of them have just been telling them the bad parts.”
A group of three District 103 students also addressed board members, explaining that Daniel Wright students may not necessarily sleep longer even if they get to sleep in later.
The options being considered by the board would push back the start time at Daniel Wright from 7:50 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., starting in the 2017-18 school year, while the first bell at Sprague Elementary would ring at 9 a.m. — 45 minutes later than the current start time of 8:15 a.m.
The schedule at Half Day School would not change, according to district board documents.
If the options are approved, Daniel Wright would end its day at 3:35 p.m. Sprague students would leave school at 2:45 p.m.
During the meeting Tuesday, parents, students and teachers mostly focused their comments on the possible changes at Daniel Wright Junior High.
The board could vote on the issue as early as December, once Superintendent Scott Warren makes a recommendation to board members, Gordon said.
Although he didn’t provide a formal direction, Warren addressed the need for district officials to do something to accommodate teenagers.
“It is a biological fact that children’s time clocks do shift,” Warren said. “The amount of sleep they’re getting, as they’re getting older, is decreasing.”
Other area school districts recently have wrestled with the idea of later start times.
Earlier this month, board members at Barrington School District 220 pushed back start and end times at the district middle schools and Barrington High School after discussing the issue and gathering community feedback for 18 months.
After the final vote, some Barrington High School students raised concerns about not being able to take care of younger siblings at home and also not being able to sleep longer since they still have to juggle homework and extracurricular activities. But they generally were supportive of the move.
In 2015, board members at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire voted to push back the high school start time from 8:05 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., acting off a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Stevenson spokesman Jim Conrey.
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But Stevenson kept the end time for school the same, opting instead to shave three minutes off each class period.
If officials tried to change the end time of 3:25 p.m., they would have created too many problems for families and students in extracurricular activities, Conrey said.
“We haven’t taken a formal survey but anecdotally, it’s been a big hit,” Conrey said of the later start. “The general vibe around school has been much more relaxed.”
Officials at Aptakisic-Tripp School District 102 in Buffalo Grove also pushed back the start time at Aptakisic Junior High in August.
Junior high students now start their day at 8 a.m., 20 minutes later than they did last year, said Vickie Walter, public relations coordinator at District 102.
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