Over the summer, Northview Public Schools superintendent Dr. Scott Korpak announced that school will be starting an hour and a half later, at 9:00 am instead of the usual 7:30, during the second semester for grades 7-12.
However, this decision ended up changing about a month into the school year. Korpak uploaded a video to YouTube explaining that the time change will be postponed until next year.
“The reason, simply stated, is that more time is needed to process and prepare for the trial. We know that the right decision implemented at the wrong time is doomed to fail,” Korpak said. “We also know that there will only be one opportunity to conduct this trial, so it has to be done correctly.”
Many students, mostly upperclassmen, were upset about this change, but some teachers and parents were relieved about the delay. Teachers like Shelli Tabor were in support of the change but admitted there would be sacrifice.
“[We will lose] eight minutes [each class period] once it gets started. I think the pace of classes would’ve had to change,” Tabor said. “I don’t know how you can get back 40 minutes a week.”
Though many parents opposed the change as well, mother of four Melissa Salvatore was in support of it. Salvatore is a bus driver for the district, so it would have been helpful for her to wake up an hour or two later.
“I was really excited to hear about the start time change, but it was kind of disappointing when they postponed it,” Salvatore said. “I feel like my kids would do much better in school if they could sleep in.”
When the time change is put in place, classes will be shortened. This means there will most likely be an increase in the amount of homework.
“[I’m] not sure if my kids will be fine with the homework, especially since [my son] has baseball in the spring,” Salvatore said.
People were disappointed that the time change would not be in effect until next year, especially seniors like Callan Loughin, who won’t get to experience starting school later.
“I’m a little disappointed. I was looking forward to sleeping in an extra hour every week,” Loughin said. “I think it definitely would have been more beneficial for students getting their work done. There are a bunch of studies that say that students should sleep in, especially teenagers, because they don’t have enough time throughout the day to get all of their work done.”
Despite students wanting and looking forward to the extra sleep, teachers like Tina Ely believe it might not be as beneficial to students as they anticipate.
“If students got more sleep in general, then they would definitely focus better and pay more attention, but I don’t know that changing the time that school starts would necessarily guarantee they will get more sleep,” Ely said.
Although it is a small sacrifice for teachers, Tabor admits the students will definitely enjoy something like this.
“Kids are tired. Kids, I felt like, when we announced we weren’t going to do this for the semester, kids in general were disappointed,” Tabor said. “They were looking for extra sleep. Between sports, work, and other things that they’re doing outside of school, they are tired and need something like this.”
I was excited for the late start 🙁