Manatee County School Board drops idea of starting high school later

BRADENTON -- An idea to push back high school start times in Manatee County met with opposition from members of the community, and school board members are unlikely to pursue the issue any further.

During a school board workshop on Tuesday, the board heard the results of a survey conducted by the school district to gauge the public's reaction to moving back start times for high school students. The idea was that a later high school start time may lead to improved academic performance. More than 56 percent of the 2,800 people who responded to the survey said they'd prefer the district leave the current start times alone.

"I think clearly the mood is that the district is not ready for a wholesale change," said school board member Charile Kennedy. "I think I've beaten this topic to death, sufficiently."

Proposals included switching middle and high school start times or pushing back all school start times 30 minutes. While some of those surveyed did like that option, the numbers weren't overwhelming.

"The most popular response was to keep all school start times the same," said Ryan Saxe, the district's executive director of secondary schools.

Board chairwoman Karen Carpenter said she wanted to be able to see compelling data that moving the school start time past 9 a.m. would provide measurable academic outcomes. She said she was not convinced the research proved that changing the start time was the only factor that would increase student achievement.

"If the purpose of this is to improve academic performance we'd need to have some data related to start times," she said.

Board member John Colon said he had heard from some parents who were concerned a change would negatively affect extracurricular activities later into the evening and parents were worried in winter months the darkness could be a safety concern.

That issue came up in the survey results as well, Saxe said. Saxe pointed to research from districts that showed extracurricular activities did not become a problem once the change was made.

"The research also indicated those were initial concerns but for the schools that did implement those later start times it did not become a factor," Saxe said.

The board took no action during the workshop.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter@MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published January 12, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Manatee County School Board drops idea of starting high school later ."