School start time change a boondoggle

Flipping school start times is a good plan? For whom?

This year’s change to increase sleeping hours for secondary students while decreasing sleeping hours for elementary school students is yet another example of flawed leadership, disrespect for process, or perhaps basic incompetence by Superintendent Jeff Moss, who stampeded the Board of Education into immediate implementation (fewer than six weeks).

The result? A divided school community pitting secondary parents against elementary parents, student against student and a school board with few, if any, viable options to correct yet another “miscalculated estimate.” Unfortunately, the “8 percent” fund balance will not be able to rectify this blunder.

Parental blowback is not a denial of the medical research about adolescent sleeping patterns. School districts across this country implemented start time changes that better align with medical research, which clearly does not suggest that elementary children simply flip start times with older students, as did the “Moss Plan.”

What was the urgency? Why not take additional time to listen, consider the emotional and occupational hardships, fears for safety, economic impact, losses and gains, and suggestions brought forth by hundreds of parents in April 2016?

Perhaps a timeline with opportunities for a good deal more analysis would have prevented the current conflicts.

The research is unquestionable ... the issues here are rush to action, limited analysis, inconsistent application and unanticipated impacts.

Most important, what is being asked is: isn’t there a better plan? Solving one problem by creating another is unacceptable. All stakeholders should benefit from change.

This story was originally published June 11, 2017 at 6:00 AM with the headline "School start time change a boondoggle."