Connection: Adjusting Traditional Class Times

Spokane-area high schools have experimented with start times for reasons other than sleep.

District 81 has considered adjusting school schedules to streamline bus traffic. Individual schools have pushed back starting times to give teachers a chance to better prepare for classes.

The idea of letting students sleep later was dismissed last year by some North Idaho educators.

Starting school later runs counter to what schools are trying to do, Coeur d’Alene High School Principal Steve Casey said last June.

“What do they do when they have jobs at 8 or 9 in the morning?” Casey asked. “You’re trying to teach kids responsibility. They’re going to have to learn how to be in the workplace.”

While some special classes begin even sooner, probably the earliest schoolwide start time is at Post Falls, where overcrowding has forced double-shifting. The first shift starts at 7 a.m.

Middle school Principal Donald Boyk said he had not seen any significant change in the grade-point averages of students in either shift.

In fact, the number of students forced to participate in an academic accountability program because they’ve failed two or more classes has decreased since double-shifting began, Boyk said.

At Spokane’s Rogers High School, the first half-hour of the day is set aside for teachers to come together for curriculum planning. Their first period classes begin at 8:25 a.m.

Shadle Park High School starts classes at 8:35 a.m., but Mondays are the only days students go to all six periods.

The demands of heavy academic loads and jobs, combined with the temptations of TV and the Internet, make balanced sleep schedules more difficult, said Shadle Principal Emmett Arndt.