FAQ: Archive Prior to 11/17/23

In response to scientific research about the benefits of later school start times for adolescents, the Board of School Directors formally adopted a District Goal on 10/4/21 to examine options for later school start and end times for secondary students for possible implementation at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.

Leading health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control and American Psychological Association recognize insufficient sleep in adolescents as an important public health issue that significantly affects their health and safety, as well as academic success. Furthermore, research indicates that ideal start time for secondary students is 8:30AM or later (based on biological sleep rhythms of adolescents) and that the ideal number of hours of sleep for adolescents is 8.5-9.5 hours.

Although a number of factors, including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands, negatively affect middle and high school students’ ability to obtain sufficient sleep, research indicates that delayed school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss and has a wide range of potential benefits including:

• Improved attentiveness, concentration, mood, and behavior
• Reduced rates of depression
• Increased the amount of sleep for students
• Decreased tardiness and car accident rates for adolescents
• Enhanced mental and physical health
• Positive impact on the immune system, behavioral health, cognitive functioning and memory 

2022-2023 School Year 

Wissahickon High School:  7:37am - 2:35pm

Wissahickon Middle School: 7:35am – 2:25pm

Blue Bell, Lower Gwynedd, Shady Grove and Stony Creek elementary schools: 8:30/8:35am -3:10/3:15pm

North Monto Technical Career Center (NMTCC): 7:57 am-2:15pm 

All changes in the current schedule would have a ripple effect with multiple impacts across the community. The global considerations listed below are a helpful way to understand the framework around which the start and end time options must be designed: 

• All changes to the current schedule will have an impact across the community. Starting school later means schools also dismiss later, which affects after school co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, and other out-of-school responsibilities for students, families and staff. This includes, but is not limited to, jobs, volunteer work, childcare, homework, downtime, family time, etc. Additionally, later start/end times create scheduling conflicts that impact WHS/WMS student-athletes and NMTCC students. 
• WSD is responsible for transporting approximately 5,000 public school students, including WHS students enrolled at North Montco Technical Career Center (NMTCC) (78 students), and 649 nonpublic school students at 50 schools currently using a two-tier bus system. NMTCC students ride the bus with WMS/WHS students. There are some nonpublic school students who also ride a WMS/WHS or elementary bus, then transfer to another bus or are dropped off to their private schools. Other nonpublic schools have their own dedicated bus, provided by WSD.
• All options will create scheduling conflicts for NMTCC students and will increase the amount of instructional time lost for WHS student-athletes. Three options also impact WMS student-athletes.

A comprehensive breakdown of these areas of impact are available by clicking the yellow Start/End Time Schedule Option Details button below.

view start/end time schedule option details

There are 36 members on the Advisory Committee: 

• Dr. James Crisfield, Superintendent
• Dr. Mwenyewe Dawan, Assistant Superintendent 
• Ronnie Hayman, Board Member
• Zeffy Karagiannakis, Board Member
• Lynne Blair, High School Principal
• Kristen Rawlings, Coordinator of School and Community Information
• Whit Yost, Middle School Assistant Principal
• Angela Farlow, Blue Bell Elementary Principal
• Lauren Steinberg, Elementary Staff
• Michelle Montijo, Elementary Staff
• Lisa Woodland-Smith, Secondary Staff
• Nicole Tecce, Elementary Staff
• Shawn Burrell, Secondary Staff
• Erica Cannon, Elementary Staff
• Rachel Stern, Elementary Staff
• Renda Lee, WSD Family
• Hyun Kim, WSD Family
• Karen Perkins, WSD Family
• Jessica Bemis-Pacini, WSD Family
• Venissia ElMarrouni, WSD Family
• Janice Bareiszis, WSD Family
• Cary Leung, WSD Family
• Adrienne Pollichemi, WSD Family
• Jimmy Chong, WSD Family
• Khyati Gosalia, WSD Family
• Tieneasha Hines, WSD Family
• Sama Ahsan, WSD Family
• Kade Kniffen, Student
• Kaili Kniffen, Student
• Michael Sapozhnikov, Student 
• Emma Greenberg, Student 
• Phil Dias, Student 
• Myla Coffey, Student
• Kaiden Bloomfield, Student
• Mia Kamppari, Student
• Blake Zimmerman, Student
• Andrea Dougherty, Community Member
• Ron Stoloff, Community Member

• November 2, 2022, 7pm via Zoom: Staff Conversation/Presentation (all Wissahickon staff are invited to attend and participate)
• November 9, 2022, 7pm via Zoom/YouTube: Community Conversation/Presentation #1 (all Wissahickon families, students, staff and community are invited to attend and participate)
• November 14-22, 2022: Survey shared with all staff, all families K-12, and students in grades 6-12
• December 15, 2022, 7pm via Zoom/YouTube: Community Conversation/Presentation #2 - Survey results shared with community (all Wissahickon families, students, staff, and community are invited to attend and participate)
• 1/9/23 Board Meeting:  “Preliminary final version options” are presented to Board & public
• 1/30/23 Board Meeting:  “Revised final version options” are presented to Board & public (after Leadership Team incorporates revisions from 1/9/23 feedback) and Board comes to consensus on one option to move forward to a vote at the next meeting (2/6/23)
• 2/6/23 Board Meeting:  Board votes on the one, final version

March-August 2023

• Leadership Team crafts plans for new start and end times (per Board-adopted final version)
• NEW SCHOOL START AND END TIMES GO INTO EFFECT FOR THE 2023-24 SCHOOL YEAR

School Board members are the decision makers. Administrators will present as much useful information as possible to inform their decision - research, costs, areas of impact, and stakeholder feedback. 

It would be ideal if it were a county decision. That would eliminate many of the concerns, but we don’t see that happening any time soon. 

It would be at least a year long commitment to implement a new schedule. Assessing the impact is a difficult task. Since the goal is to provide additional sleep for secondary students, we would establish a baseline for the quantity and quality of current sleep times and measure it a year after the change is implemented. We will also consider developing additional assessment measures.

We have had a lot of conversations and provided information to families, staff and students via an e-newsletter and the website, and believe that we have done a fair job explaining the impacts and the benefits.

All group responses will be considered by the board members. At this point we do not plan for another survey.

We did not parse out responses by grade levels – only the full stakeholder groups.

There will be conversations at board meetings and opportunities for the Board to express what they are thinking. 

We could do that, but implementation would not be by August 2023. 

Yes, this is still an option being considered.  

Board members will take the survey feedback into consideration, along with other things such as the sleep research and budget impact, when making their decision.  

Two schedule options are currently under consideration as well as the option to maintain our current start and end times. 

Option 1: PUSH EVERYTHING Later (20-30 Minutes)
WMS/WHS start 30 minutes later; Elementary starts 20 minutes later
WHS 8:07am - 3:05pm; WMS 8:05am - 2:55pm; Elementary 8:50/8:55am -3:30/3:35pm

Option 2: PUSH WHS Later (45-55 Minutes)
WMS/WHS start 55 minutes later; Elementary starts 45 minutes later
WHS: 8:32am- 3:30pm; WMS 8:30am- 3:20pm; Elementary 9:15/9:20am-3:55/4:00pm

NO CHANGE: Maintain Current Schedule
WHS: 7:37am - 2:35pm; WMS: 7:35am – 2:25pm; Elementary: 8:30/8:35am -3:10/3:15pm

view school start/end time option details

Two of the options, which proposed that elementary schools start earlier, were eliminated due to lack of support by the community as well as the higher cost of additional busing needs. 

Option 3: PUSH WHS Later and PULL Elementary Earlier
WHS starts 53 minutes later; WMS has no change; Elementary starts 30 minutes earlier

Option 4: FLIP Secondary & Elementary
WMS/WHS start 60 minutes later; Elementary starts 60 minutes earlier

Another option to push school start and end times back 83 minutes at WHS was carefully reviewed and eliminated earlier in the evaluation process.

With the help of the School Start/End Time Advisory Committee, comprised of 35 stakeholders, including families, staff, students, community members and board members from the Wissahickon community, the District's leadership team researched and developed options that would provide later start times for high school students. Research included a review of schedule changes implemented by other school districts in the region. 

The advisory committee convened four times since March 9, 2022 to help identify pros and cons of each option and explore the feasibility of the schedules for our school community. 

Additionally, the leadership team held an all Staff information session in February 2022 and two Community Conversations in January and March 2022 to provide information to all stakeholders in the district and listen to their ideas, questions, and concerns. With the feedback from these meetings, the leadership team developed four possible options. 

The community was asked to provide feedback on these four options via a Staff Only Conversation held November 2 on Zoom and a Community Conversation with all students, staff, families and community members on November 9. Additionally, the community has submitted comments and questions via our online feedback form on the district website.

Based on this feedback, two of the options, which proposed that elementary schools start earlier, were eventually eliminated. The remaining two options would push school start and end times later at WHS, WMS and the elementary schools and the School Board has the option to maintain our current schedule.

Yes, the Board can vote on any option including no change in the current schedule. 

In terms of minutes and school days, there are Pennsylvania Department of Education requirements that districts must follow. Also, there isn't support for shortening the school day as instruction time for students is our top priority.  

The only associated cost with these options is for transportation because we will lose efficiencies of busing NMTCC and nonpublic schools with our current bus runs and would need to provide separate busing. 

Additional annual cost for option #1 is estimated at $217,000 

Additional annual cost for option #2 is estimated at $339,000 

NMTCC students would not benefit from the change as their school schedule (start time at 7:55 am) will not change and they will need to be transported separately to arrive at NMTCC at that time.

Yes, some extracurricular and co-curricular activities that are currently held after school may move to before school.

Yes, this is part of the consideration.

It will be difficult to manage all of these schedules. Community-based programs will still stay at the same times and WSD children may not be able to continue to participate.

In the 2022-23 school year, the YMCA program that serves our school district has reached capacity in our elementary schools for the afternoon session. YMCA representatives have shared that childcare services may be expanded if staffing is available.

Yes, we would need to consider having activity buses in the morning.

The Social Lab experience and opportunity to attend NMTCC is extremely valuable to students. The impact on these students is part of our consideration.  

Yes, this is part of our considerations.

This is an important topic. We will include this in considerations.

This isn't an option with our current schedule at WHS. We would need to reopen the collective bargaining agreement.

We don’t have any districts in our county who have made a change and only a handful in the region. We have had extensive conversations with Radnor Area School District which is the only district that pushed its high school start time back to an 8:30am start (their middle school starts at 7:50am). Our understanding is they are still working on ways to support student-athletes who are missing instruction. In conversation with Quakertown, they are also reviewing the impact on student-athletes and considering switching back their start times, but have not taken any action.

Yes, we will be considering the impact on childcare for students, families and staff. 

We will need to decouple some of our routes of WSD and nonpublic and NMTCC student transportation. If we start later, we lose the efficiencies of doing some joint routes. The costs would be an estimated $217,000 for option 1 and a $339,000 for option 2. Also, there is currently a bus driver shortage so we may have difficulty finding drivers. 

Currently we are not aware of any plans for them to change their schedules. If, in the future more schools decided to change their start times, then there could be changes across the region.   

A shorter school day is a possible solution to think about, but we felt that it was important to keep instructional time the same. If we did change the length of the school day and provided less instruction time, it would take a considerable amount of time to work through and we would need to consider all possible impact points. 

Not directly.  There would be a budget impact (additional busing costs) if times change, but that would be part of the annual budget process and embedded in the school’s budget.  

We very much value the education of our NMTCC students, and are trying hard to figure out how to best meet their needs should a change to start times happen. These students will be provided separate busing to ensure they arrive at NMTCC for morning instruction. However, PM NMTCC students will miss some WHS instructional time because they will still need to leave WHS at the same time as they do now.  A possible solution for that group is a virtual class, which is not ideal but can make the logistics work.

Feedback can be provided to the School Board and District in multiple ways:

Meetings

All community members are invited to participate in the following meetings and discussions as follows: 

• November 2, 2022, 7pm via Zoom: Staff Conversation/Presentation (all Wissahickon staff are invited to attend and participate)
• November 9, 2022, 7pm via Zoom/YouTube: Community Conversation/Presentation #1 (all Wissahickon families, students, staff and community are invited to attend and participate)
• December 15, 2022, 7pm via Zoom/YouTube: Community Conversation/Presentation #2 - Survey results shared with community (all Wissahickon families, students, staff, and community are invited to attend and participate)
• 1/9/23 Board Meeting:  “Preliminary final version options” are presented to Board & public
• 1/30/23 Board Meeting:  “Revised final version options” are presented to Board & public (after Leadership Team incorporates revisions from 1/9/23 feedback) and Board comes to consensus on one option to move forward to a vote at the next meeting (2/6/23)

Surveys

From November 14th - November 22nd, the District is surveying ALL parents/guardians K-12, ALL staff K-12 and all students, grades 6-12, regarding the possible implementation of later school start and end times. Two schedule options are currently under consideration as well as the option to maintain current schedules. The goal of the survey is to determine the impact of these revised schedules on Wissahickon families, staff and students. This survey will inform the final version for Board consideration. Survey results will be shared with the community via our e-newsletter on December 13 and discussed during a Community Conversation on December 15 at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom. 

Online Feedback Form

We invite families, students, staff and community members to share their comments and questions via our online feedback form to help inform the decision making process. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions are on this webpage.

view comparison: districts that changed OR CONSIDERED CHANGING school START/END TIMES

Yes, we are surveying students grades 6 -12. We recognize that this will impact students’ jobs and other after school activities. Students, families and staff are welcome at the Community Conversations or to complete our online Feedback Form.

There isn't a lot of data in this area from the other area school districts we researched. Follow-up surveys/reports show that some students reported getting more sleep while others said they didn't.  

The community can continue to share feedback by participating in upcoming board meetings and using our feedback form on the website.  

Yes, later start and end times for students would also shift start/end times for staff.

We will need to look at when the faculty meetings would be scheduled/shifted.

Yes, we know that any option to move start/end times later will result in the loss of instruction time for teachers and students and we are considering this impact.