NEW — 3:25 p.m. Dec. 15, 2015
In response to parent and community requests for later start times, especially for high school students, the Issaquah School District last week released a preliminary proposal of changes to bell times.
District communications director L. Michelle said the district and school board had fielded a growing number of requests for change over the last couple years. She said the call for change follows similar requests in Seattle and Bellevue school districts. Michelle added this is not the first time bell times were re-examined.
“Issaquah looked at bell times 10 years ago but decided not to make any changes at that time,” she said.
This time around, Superintendent Ron Thiele directed his senior staff in September and October to study the issue, keeping in mind the following parameters:
— School start and end times for all grade levels must occur between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.
— The tiered bus system must be kept intact.
— The change to the high school start time must be significant.
— The costs associated with changing to later start and end times must be fiscally responsible.
Michelle explained that the Issaquah School District’s tiered bus system, in which the same bus is used on multiple routes, saves the district money while covering its 110-square-mile boundaries.
“To drop off students all at the same time would require a larger fleet,” Michelle said. “The superintendent wanted to keep the financial impact low, yet make a real impact.”
Therefore, Thiele didn’t want just little adjustments, but true change to the schedule, Michelle said. That’s why the new proposed time would move back the start of day for high school students by more than 1 ½ hours. However, Michelle said Thiele didn’t want to push the end of the day past 4 p.m. because it would have an adverse effect on traffic and students getting to after-school jobs.
To implement any proposed changes for the next school year — Michelle said she couldn’t foresee any scenario in which bell times would take effect this school year — a decision needs to be made by March. To facilitate that decision, the administration is inviting the public to share their thoughts about the proposal by email at BellTime@issaquah.wednet.edu or online at issaquah.wednet.edu/news/ENews. Once the administration has the general pulse of the public, community meetings will be scheduled to facilitate further input.
Because any change to the bell times is operational, Michelle said the final decision — no change, change or change it later — would fall to the administration rather than the school board.
For more information on the sleep studies and school start times being cited by parents and community members who are requesting this adjustment, go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website at cdc.gov/features/school-start-times.