Later Start, Dismissal for Tippy Valley Students Next Year
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
AKRON – Students at Tippecanoe Valley Schools will start the school day later and get out later during the 2012-13 school year compared to past years.
The school board approved the changes Monday to the school day as well as the 2012-13 master calendar.
According to Superintendent Brett Boggs, as part of the agreement between the board and the Tippecanoe Valley Classroom Teacher Association reached in spring 2011, the total number of hours each teacher at Valley must work is 7 hours, 40 minutes for 2011-12 and 8 hours beginning with the 2012-13 school year.
During the current school year, the Days & Hours Planning Committee met to make recommendations regarding the use and structure of the additional daily time. This year, the additional teacher time was used primarily to create additional time for collaboration and professional development at the building level, twice a week 40 minutes prior to the start of the student day.
“I think our teachers and administrators will tell you it’s been very productive,” Boggs said.
The committee then looked at what to do with the additional time during the 2012-13 school year. The committee used a multi-step problem-solving process to first identify the problem to be solved by adding time to the teacher day. The problem identified by the committee was, “TVSC is not meeting expectations for student success in character education, leadership and literacy.”
“We felt we’re not doing a poor job, we’re just not where we wanted to be,” Boggs said.
The committee developed several preliminary recommendations that were shared with each school’s staff. Feedback was collected, and recommendations to the board were made based on the feedback.
The first recommendation was to start the school day 15 minutes later than it currently is, with the second recommendation being to add 10 minutes to the student day.
Currently, Akron and Mentone elementaries start at 8:15 a.m. and end at 3:15 p.m. Under the new schedule, the elementaries will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 3:40 p.m.
Because starting school 15 minutes later each day may cause additional child care issues for some families, Boggs said, before-school child care will be provided at both elementary schools during the 2012-13 school year. Additional information about the child care services to be provided will be shared later in the school year.
At the middle school, the day currently begins at 8:05 a.m. and ends at 2:55 p.m. The new schedule will have the middle school starting at 8:20 a.m. and end at 3:20 p.m.
The current high school schedule starts at 8:10 a.m. and ends at 3:05 p.m. The new schedule for 2012-13 will have the high school starting at 8:25 a.m. and ending at 3:30 p.m.
The third recommendation from the committee was to bank the additional time available for the 2012-13 school year (10 minutes per day for a total of 30 hours) to use for teacher in-service, professional growth and development.
Boggs said a number of studies show even a small change in the start time of the school day can make significant positive changes in the lives of students.
Benefits of a later school start time, Boggs said, include: improved academic performance of students and attendance, less tardiness to school, students make fewer trips to the school nurse, students gain additional sleep time, students eat breakfast more frequently, improved student behavior with a calmer atmosphere in the hallways, fewer discipline referrals, fewer students seeking help for stress relief due to academic issues and fewer students with relationship problems and difficulties with parents.
Research, Boggs said, also has shown a later start to the school day helps prevent “drowsy” crashes by improving the teen driver’s alertness. Schools with later starting times have seen a decline in their student accident statistics.
Moving the start of the school day by 15 minutes is safer for students, he said. A later start provides for less darkness and more daylight. The additional morning time allows more time for early morning road conditions to improve and could result in fewer school delays, Boggs said.
The master calendar recommended for 2012-13 is similar to the current school calendar, Boggs said.
The 2012-13 calendar features 182 student instructional days and 185 teacher days. If necessary, there are five emergency makeup days prior to high school graduation.
The calendar has teachers starting Aug. 16, followed by students on Aug. 17. The last day of school for students and teachers is May 30, 2013, with graduation set for June 2, 2013.
Thanksgiving break will be Nov. 22-23, with Christmas vacation running from Dec. 21 through Jan. 1. Spring vacation begins at the close of school March 29, with school resuming April 8.
