Elmbrook Families and Staff,

In October, the Elmbrook Board of Education created a School Start Time Committee and charged it with the task of forming school start time recommendations for our elementary, middle and high schools. This representative committee, consisting of parents, staff members, students, and board members, has met two times and has consumed a significant amount of background knowledge in child and adolescent sleep research, benchmark district practices, and relevant data and information pertaining to our current environment and school schedules. Additionally, the Committee discovered that both California (implemented in 2022) and Florida (2026) have passed laws requiring middle and high school start times after 8am. While this topic has been studied by many different entities in Elmbrook’s history, most recently the Calendar Committee of 2017, our current three-tier approach has not changed in over 25 years. Yet, there is a strong desire among Committee members to consider changes that positively impact our students’ education experience and are aligned to sleep research recommendations.

Members of the School Start Time Committee would like our families and staff members to stay informed of their work leading up to the presentation of recommendations to the Board of Education on March 18. Below are links to some of the information reviewed by the Committee. All committee documents can be found on this School Start Time Committee webpage. 

• Summary Research Article on adolescent sleep research and school start times
• November Committee Presentation
• December Committee Presentation

The Committee’s next meeting will be on January 15, 2025 at Burleigh Elementary in the Viking Room at 6pm. We are anticipating a school start time feedback survey will be deployed in late February to all families, staff and middle and high school students to help inform recommendations. 

 

Thank you,
Chris Thompson, Committee Facilitator