As the Boulder Valley School District plans to standardize the elementary school day to seven hours with a 7:45 a.m. start, parents are questioning the need for a longer day and asking for a later start time.
The change, which includes an end time of 2:45 p.m., is expected to go into effect in August. Under the new schedule, some middle schools and K-8 schools may see small changes to start and end times, while high school schedules will stay the same.
The district also plans to add a one-hour late start for all schools — including preschool — on Wednesdays to give teachers a common professional development time.
Families can give feedback, ask questions and complete a survey on the school district’s online Let’s Talk BVSD platform. The survey asks about child care, school meals and transportation needs created by the changes. School district officials said they will consider feedback before deciding on a final elementary schedule in May, as well as using the feedback to create school supports.
On the Let’s Talk platform, one parent wrote that mornings are already a “harried, rushed and trying time.”
“We’re worried about the ability to get our children excited, ready and motivated at an early hour — was there not a ‘meet in the middle’ option to ease into an early start?” the parent wrote.
Another wrote that their kids attend an elementary school that starts at 7:55 a.m., when it’s cold, dark and there’s more traffic from those commuting to work.
“I have wished for an extra 10 minutes for the last 10 years,” the parent wrote.
Several asked if the Wednesday late start could be changed to an early release at the end of the school day. Working parents generally already have child care set up after school, making an early release easier to manage, they said. Moving the early release day to a Monday or Friday was another suggestion.
One parent wrote that her experience with late start days in middle school “has been incredibly frustrating as a parent trying to establish routine in the school/work week.”
Schools haven’t yet determined what child care options could be available before school on a late start day. Some schools already use late starts now, including Broomfield’s Emerald Elementary, and offer a mix of free and tuition-based enrichment classes and child care. But it’s not clear if the district could afford to provide a free option at all schools.
In a “Let’s Talk Education” broadcast that aired on Thursday, Area Superintendent Robbyn Fernandez said the common professional development time provided by a late start helps teachers continue learning about best practices and how to implement them.
“All of us believe, because it’s true, that our educators are skilled and dedicated,” she said during the broadcast. “The truth is that level of expertise needs to be supported and maintained. It doesn’t happen magically.”
She said Wednesday mornings were chosen as the best time for teachers — they’re more fresh in the mornings, can discuss what they learned in their Thursday staff meetings and can share new information, if needed, with elementary parents in Friday communications.
For the standardized school day, the changes are needed to give all students equal learning time, district officials said. A standardized school day was first proposed in 2016 as part of work to ensure students had access to the same school experiences.
Now, elementary school days range from six-and-a-half-hours long to seven-hours-and-20-minutes long, or 1,032 hours to 1,175 hours a year, according to the district. The difference between a seven-hour day and a six-hour day equals about 13 more days of instruction each school year.
District leaders said they understand it’s difficult for parents to adjust to another change after all the disruptions created by the pandemic. But, they said, schools will need more time with students to address learning losses.
“There has never been a more urgent need to address children’s instructional needs and, now, children’s instructional gaps,” Fernandez said during the Let’s Talk broadcast.
In response to requests not to start elementary schools so early, Assistant Superintendent of Operations Rob Price said the elementary start time of 7:45 a.m. is dictated by bus schedules. High school start times were pushed back to 8:30 a.m. in 2019 based on adolescent sleep research, while middle school starts at 8:40 a.m.
To maintain the later high school start time, bus drivers need 45 minutes between dropping off elementary students and picking up middle and high school students, Price said. Otherwise, the district would need to add bus routes — and the standardized school day would no longer be cost neutral.
“If you adjust one, it throws everything else off,” he said.
He noted only a few elementary schools, including Bear Creek, Columbine, Eisenhower and Mesa, would need to start more than 20 minutes earlier under the new schedule. Schools that now have a 7:50 a.m. bell time still have students walking and biking to school, he added.
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