Stevenson High School will be pushing back their start time from 8:05 a.m to 8:30 a.m beginning in the 2016-2017 school year.
This change is being made for several reasons, according to the Stevenson High School website, and will assist in the mission of success for every student. All classes will be 47 minutes, with an exception of 1st period being 51 minutes for announcements, and the day will end at 3:25p.m. Other schools in the north suburban area range from 42-50 minutes.
One of the main reasons for the later start, that he website reported, is that it will simply enable students to have more time to sleep. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that middle and high schools should not start before 8:30 a.m: “The evidence strongly suggests that a too-early start to the school day is a critical contributor to chronic sleep deprivation among American adolescents.”
That High School’s website stated that many kids do not go to bed until after 11 p.m on school nights and this is because a student’s day is far from over when school gets out in the late afternoon. Many things still have to be accomplished after the final bell, like sports, clubs, activities, jobs, homework, meals, and spending time with family or friends. Due to the business of a typical teenager’s life, one can be getting around six hours of sleep. If this is the case, then that is 3-4 hours less than what is recommended and leads to students often being overtired in class.
Stevenson High School Junior Hannah Petrich thinks that the later start will benefit students in many ways because it will give them more time to get ready and drive to school especially in the winter and when there is traffic.
According to the website, the second main reason for the change is that with a later start, teachers will be able to meet with their colleagues and teams more often and for a longer time before school begins. Stevenson High School will eliminate its “second day of the week” schedule, which was created to give curriculum teams one hour to meet in the morning on that day (similar to the LHS Wednesday Late Starts). There was an issue because certain teachers are on multiple teams and were only able to meet with one of them during the week. They were not able to meet frequently enough to have a meaningful impact on the classroom teaching. So, now every day will be like second-day-of-the-week schedule. The high school will continue to have occasional “late arrival” days with a start time of 10:30 a.m.
The final reason is that this will provide more time for students and teachers to meet in the morning. Students value assistance they are able to receive from their teachers, and the delayed starts will make for many extra minutes per week to meet with teachers.
Stevenson High School’s website states that the administration assures that these changes will make a positive impact on the goal of success for every student.
Along with the morning start time being changed, the school will also move finals before winter break. This will ensure students a real break to spend time with their families and relax with no stress of homework, upcoming exams, and project due dates hanging over their heads. They will start on Monday, Aug. 15 (3 days earlier than this year) and end prior to Memorial Day weekend, on Thursday, May 25, 2017.
