Later start to school? Brookfield adjusts high school start time

Changes to school start times are coming to Brookfield’s public schools when the school year kicks off after Labor Day.

“We really tackled this as an adolescent health issue," Superintendent John Barile said.

The planning for the changes dates back to 2019, when a subcommittee began looking into the impacts of a changed start time for the high school. Barile said COVID-19 and the building of a new elementary school delayed the rollout, but he is excited to kick off high school classes later this year.

“We are changing school start times to make sure our teenagers especially, have a longer period of sleep," Barile said.

The middle school start time will remain largely the same at about 8 a.m., but Brookfield High School will also start at 8 a.m. - a 45-minute delay from previous years. The elementary schools will also see a small delay in start time, at 8:50 a.m.

That change of course also delays the end of the day by 45 minutes. But he expects minimal impacts on afterschool activities like sports, because of changes happening close by.

“Many schools in out area, in our league the southwest conference are moving to this later start time, for their students for the exact same reason as Brookfield is,” Barile said, “so we are all moving the schedule a little bit different.”

But former and future parents of Brookfield students had mixed reactions going into the new school year.

“That’s kind of late, I’d say get up and get out," Michael Schimenti said.

“So a little extra time to have breakfast and get ready for school, hopefully we are actually on time this year," Brian Jacobson said.

Others say the changes might take some getting used to and could impact how parents schedule the start and end of the day, but think it will be beneficial.

“I’m not against it, the only problem would be some parents might have some issues with work schedules," Jason Fiege said.

But Barile said they have had plenty of time to study the issue, and believes even these seemingly small adjustments will have a big impact.

“When people take a look at how busy our high school kids are, many of them start their day, they are up at 6 a.m., many to start school at 7:15 a.m., they aren’t finishing their homework after all their activities or part-time jobs, until 10/11 at night so 45 minutes is a big deal," Barlie said.

Experts in the field of sleep, agree.

“If you think about it, if they are getting 45 minutes of sleep extra, five days a week, that’s three hours and 45 minutes, that’s half a night's extra of sleep in a school week,” said Dr. Gregory Colodner, director of sleep medicine at Saint Mary's Hospital, which is part of Trinity Health.

He said even a 45-minute push back to the start of the day can lead to higher SAT scores, decrease in substance abuse and increased focus and concentration.

Colodner points to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine position paper that says school start times should be as close to 9 a.m. as feasibly possible.

“While that is difficult, in Connecticut, any improvement will help," Colodner said.