Lower Merion’s long-debated school start time changes are finally taking effect

When high school students head back to Lower Merion schools Sept. 3, they will be getting an hour longer to sleep: The district’s high schools will now start at 8:30 a.m., pushed back from 7:30.

But all students will see rearranged schedules under the new plan, which was debated for years as part of an effort to better align schooling with adolescent sleep schedules. Middle schools will start 15 minutes earlier, at 8 a.m., while elementary schools will shift back by 10 minutes to 9:10 a.m.

It’s all part of a complex arrangement that tries to account for myriad factors: advisories from medical organizations that say teens shouldn’t be starting school earlier than 8:30 a.m., given the shifts in circadian rhythms that accompany puberty; school bus routes, which have to be staggered in order to complete one round of drop-offs before the next school starts; and parents’ work and kids’ after-school activities, which are also impacted by later schedules.

District officials — who said the new schedules may affect community traffic patterns — are watching closely to see how the first weeks of school play out. “As much as we have planned, and thought through everything we think there is to think through,” the district will make adjustments if needed, spokesperson Amy Buckman said.

At the high school level, while school will start an hour later, the school day will be shortened by 25 minutes so that the day, which previously ended at 2:40 p.m., will now end at 3:15. The day will also be shortened by 15 minutes at the middle school level, which will get out at 2:35; elementary schools will end at 3:45. (The district had modified an earlier plan that would have ended elementary school later, at 4:05 p.m., after pushback from parents.)

The district also backed off a plan to cut busing for 500 students at the high school level — a change it had initially planned in order to make busing work under the new schedules, amid a shortage of available drivers.

To ensure that no school started too early or late, the district compressed bus routes; to complete the routes in that shortened time frame, it proposed expanding the high-school walk zone from 1 mile to 1.5 miles.

But outcry from parents and students caused it to change course. Earlier this year, then-superintendent Steven Yanni said the district would find other ways to make the bus routes work — with some middle school buses possibly arriving earlier than the start of school, and some high school buses possibly arriving after the 8:30 start.

Lower Merion is also launching full-day kindergarten this fall, potentially adding to the busing demands.

While the district thinks it’s made its bus schedules “as efficient as possible,” Buckman said, “we’re expecting that adjustment period that we have every year to be perhaps a little bumpier this year” — and are asking families for patience.

The district, which surveyed students last year about their sleep schedules and level of sleepiness during the school day, plans to repeat the survey in December and possibly again in the spring, “to get some real data on the change,” Buckman said.