Following a Bellevue School Board vote to approve a conditional 8:30 a.m. high school start time, Mercer Island School Board member Dave Myerson pressed his board colleagues for next steps in their decision-making process for later high school start times.

“I fear time is going to be of the essence,” he said at the board’s regular meeting Oct. 8. “We’re going to have to make the decision fairly quickly and we’re going to have to incorporate some community input at some time.”

The district had been monitoring how the situation would play out in neighboring communities like Bellevue. The joint steering committee, created to advise both the Mercer Island and Bellevue school districts, recommended to the Mercer Island School Board in June that no changes be made to high school bell times. Their recommendation came after six months of research and community outreach, with the committee stating in its report that the “benefits are outweighed by undesirable consequences that would impact the large majority of our high school students.”

A survey of over 1,200 respondents taken by the committee, gathering input from high school students, staff members and parents, showed 52 percent of those surveyed were opposed to moving back start times to 8:30 a.m. for the 2016-17 school year.

Still, the issue was pushed by Myerson and board member Adair Dingle for further discussion, citing a recommendation published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 2014.

Now, with Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano’s winter deadline for a decision approaching and plenty of concerns raised by those in the Island’s music program, the board is still in limbo on how to move forward on the initiative.

“I would encourage us not to cut short the public process on this,” said Vice President Ralph Jorgenson, noting the recommendation against moving start times from the steering committee. “It seems like, especially on Mercer Island, whenever we cut short public process, it comes back to bite us.”

But with changes already set to take place within the district in 2016-17, namely the opening of Northwood Elementary, Myerson and Dingle expressed urgency in getting the ball rolling on a decision.

“I think if we delay this, we’re putting a lot more stress on the system,” Dingle said. “I think there are some advantages to implementing the late start, if we can next fall, and I think we should strive for that. I think overall, that would reduce the stress on many, many of our staff. I don’t see any advantage to waiting.”

Plano said the board was scheduled to discuss later start times and their impacts with members of the music program at the next board meeting on Oct. 22. Outside of that, he implored board members not to get any further ahead of themselves.

“The new board could always undo a decision of the old board,” he said, referring to the new incoming members who will take up board chairs in 2016. “Don’t rush to judgment. Don’t do something that you as a board, or the future board, might need to undo because you moved too quickly.”