Parents Protest School Schedules

By Larissa Lytwyn

Nearly a dozen parents voiced passionate opposition to changing school schedules at the Board of Education meeting July 1. Elementary school parents in particular said they felt ill informed about the implications of a three-tier schedule, describing administrative efforts to keep them informed poorly defined.

“There were a lot of us in the dark,” said Michelle Hankin, a former independent consultant for strategic planning and management, as well as qualitative research. “It seemed that some board members recognized that when the proposal of the three-tier plan was made, they didn’t know how significantly it would affect the children,” she said.

When the Board of Education approved a three-tier system June 17, high school and middle school start times shifted from 7:30 am to 7:42 am, creating a “trickle down” effect that pushed Head O’ Meadow, Middle Gate, and Sandy Hook schools’ already later start times even further back. In contrast, second-tier Reed Intermediate School was scheduled to begin earlier, moving from 9 am to 8:20 am.

After a period of deliberation at the July 1 meeting, however, the 12-minute addition to the middle and high school schedule was removed and Reed Intermediate and elementary school start times were moved up 12 minutes.

“While the original intent was to provide some relief for the high school and middle school students,” said Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff, “we ultimately realized that the 12-minute addition was relatively insignificant.”

Not all of the board members support the school schedules changes. During the past three consecutive Board of Education meetings, secretary Margaret Hull shared three written statements with fellow board members articulating her opposition to early start times for high school and especially middle school students.

“At first glance, this proposal is an obvious winner — save money and streamline at the same time,” she read during the June 12 Board of Education meeting. “But this is a faulty proposal because it will place hundreds of vulnerable children in unsupervised homes of hardworking, two-earner couples for the additional hours of 2:15–4:15 each school day.”

During the June 17 meeting, Ms Hull again shared a statement of written dissent, citing a recent New York Times article on the implementation of later start times for adolescent-aged students in the Wilton school system, as well as research on the potential social consequences of unsupervised afternoons.

While Ms Hull appreciated the economy of the three-tier system, she preferred keeping a four-tier system for the 2003–2004 school year while research could be collected to ultimately support a three-tier model implementing later high school and middle school start times. During the vote, Ms Hull and board member Laura Schwartz were the lone dissenters against the proposed three-tier system. During the June 12 meeting, Ms Schwartz had previously supported a three-tier system in a consensus vote.

“I never thought the 12-minute addition to the high school and middle school schedules were significant,” agrees Wendy Leon-Gambetta, a mother of adolescent-aged students who, having studied the neurological implications of sleep patterns in adolescents, concluded that early start times inhibits the learning process. “My middle school student will now be waiting for the bus at 6:30 am instead of 8:30 am,” she said, “and I think that is ludicrous.”

While Mrs Leon-Gambetta supports a cost-effective three-tier system itself, she believes the board should have kept the four-tier system intact for 2003–04 so that more research could be compiled to support later-starting middle and high school schedules. The following year, she said, the later schedules could be implemented into a three-tier system. “I think a solution would have been to flip the first and third tier,” she said.

At around 11:30 pm at the July 1 meeting, Director of Transportation Mary Kelly made a proposal, suggesting flipping the third tier elementary schools with the earlier starting second tier. After brief discussion, the suggestion was deemed a future possibility that warranted further discussion. “It’s something we would like to revisit at some point,” said Ms Kelly.

Schedule Details

FIRST TIER: High School, 7:30 am -1:52 pm (arrive 7:10 am); Middle School, 7:30 am -1:52 pm (arrive 7:10 am).

SECOND TIER: St Rose School, 8:21 am -2:45 pm (arrive 8 am); Reed Intermediate, 8:24 am -2:44 pm (arrive 8:11 am); Hawley, 8:24 am -2:36 pm (arrive 8:04 am); Fraser Woods,  8:15 am-3 pm (arrive 8 am); Housatonic Valley, 8:15 am—3 pm (arrive 8 am).

THIRD TIER: Sandy Hook & Head O’ Meadow, 9:10 am-3:22 pm (arrive 8:58 am); Middle Gate, 9:10 am - 3:22 pm (arrive 8:58 am).