The Mercer Island School Board drew sharp criticism and negative feedback from community members after reintroducing discussion of later high school start times at its regular meeting June 9.
The School Board included the item of “board direction about late start for 2017-18” on its June 9 meeting agenda. At its previous meeting, board member Dave Myerson expressed he was concerned about late start and thought its operational expectation needed to be appended to address the issue.
Six community members addressed the matter during public comments, with some calling the board’s revisit of late start “shameful,” “disheartening” and “frustrating.” Islander Jerry Kavesh said he considered the matter a board governance management issue.
“I believe revisiting this topic now is irresponsible and makes me question the quality of the board’s decision-making process and its long-term effectiveness,” Kavesh commented. “This directly undermines the superintendent and sends a powerful negative message to the community, that the board will ignore its professional staff, its own process and the community’s wishes.”
The board voted unanimously last winter to support Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano’s recommendations regarding late start, and in February the district adopted late-start Wednesdays at the high school for the 2016-17 school year.
Prior to adopting late-start Wednesdays, the board received a recommendation for no changes to bell times from the High School Start-Time Committee, a joint steering committee advising the Mercer Island and Bellevue school districts on the matter. The recommendation came after six months of research and community outreach.
Ever since, Myerson and board member Adair Dingle have continued to advocate for later start times to extend throughout the school week. Both often cited the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2014 calling for later middle school and high school start times.
Plano has previously offered to turn the decision over to the board, though members have maintained the issue should remain a decision made by the superintendent.
“I continue to want to keep this open because I think the American Academy of Pediatrics report is actually valid,” Myerson said. “I’m not trying to disrespect anybody. But we need to keep it open.”
Dingle noted research on the later high school start times dated back 30 years and called the issue a national concern with many different perspectives. She also mentioned receiving an email from a high school student inquiring why the School Board doesn’t discuss teen suicide.
“One of the reasons why this issue has become so important nationally is because having high school start later has been associated with decreased car accidents, decreased incidents of depression as well as elevated SAT scores, elevated graduation rates, decreased dropout rates. There’s a lot of indicators that suggest this is a good thing,” Dingle said. “The report from the Academy of Pediatricians that Dave referenced is quite significant but it is also quite late because the research on this started a long time ago.”
Dingle also commented she was shocked to see late start on the June 9 agenda, saying it seemed “rushed” and would be a more appropriate discussion topic for the School Board’s summer retreat.
School Board vice president David D’Souza said he appreciated the idea of late start for its benefits and could see the board monitoring late start on a yearly basis.
“Like a lot of us who work in startups or see startups, [we] see a lot of good ideas, but the hard part is the execution and making it work,” D’Souza said. “A lot of people can come up with good ideas, but the winners are the people who know how to execute, get buy-in… and have a good outcome. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we fail on that.”
Regarding student sleep patterns, Plano told the board studies have shown the change time needed for student improvement is 45 or 50 minutes. Should the district roll back high school start times, it would only be for an additional 30 minutes, which falls short of that window. Mercer Island High School begins its day at 8 a.m. and would move to 8:30 a.m.
“My concern is the return on that investment. Of all the change that we would be going about, are we getting back the kind of return that we would we want? And the costs are many,” Plano said, drawing several nods from audience members.
The board entertained a communication update on late start from the superintendent in the fall. Plano suggested the board wait a full school cycle and revisit the issue next spring to monitor how later start times have worked in the neighboring school districts of Bellevue and Seattle.
