What to Know
- The changes, which would take place in fall 2018, would have many students starting their days at 7:15 a.m. and others getting out earlier.
- Parents of students at Boston Public Schools spoke out at a Dec. 18 meeting over proposed changes to school start and dismissal times.
- Parents and teachers were concerned with students having a lack of sleep. Parents were also concerned with finding after-school childcare.
Boston Public Schools will no longer be implementing proposed school start and end time changes for the 2018-2019 school year.
Superintendent Tommy Chang said in a letter released Friday that parent and community feedback helped reinforce the decision.
"Over the past few weeks, we have heard from families, staff, and stakeholders that there are concerns with the implementation of the new start and end times policy," he said. "After reflecting on this feedback, we understand that while the new schedule would achieve our goal of supporting academic success for all ages, the shifts to many school start times caused a more significant disruption to family schedules than we intended."
The Boston School Committee had voted on a policy earlier this month that would have changed the start and end times for students at elementary and high schools beginning next school year.
Of the 125 schools in the district, 105 were planned to have different bell times.
The new policy prioritized high schools starting after 8 a.m. and having elementary schools dismiss students before 4 p.m. Right now, many elementary school students end their day around 4 p.m., which puts buses on Boston roadways during the evening rush hour.
Parents and teachers attended meetings in the city to express their frustration, saying the changes would have a serious impact on their schedules.
"You can’t ask children to wake up at the crack of dawn and go out to school," said parent Tigran Eldred. "Get their school buses before it’s even light out."
"Who’s going to suffer from this? Our young children are getting sleep deprived," teacher Angela Rubenstein said. "Coming to school not ready to learn, which is going to hurt academic outcomes in the long run. As a teacher I see that."
Chang said in his letter that he's committed to listening to the community to figure out the best path forward.
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"We will be asking for your help in building a more effective, equitable, and sustainable school system for our great City of Boston," he said. "In the coming months, we will be building on the current engagement process that will allow us to address start and end times as well as other strategic priorities we hope to achieve in the near future."
