The Flagler County school district is working toward exempting itself from a state law that requires middle and high school start times to be no earlier than 8 and 8:30 a.m. by mid-2026. An amendment to the law allows districts to opt out of the time change if they can show evidence that the change isn’t favored. The district is collecting that evidence.
“I truly believe in the science of more sleep,” Flagler School Board member Lauren Ramirez said. “But I feel that our infrastructure may not be built for it, at least not yet.”
In 2023 lawmakers passed a bill (HB733) requiring middle school start times to be no earlier than 8 a.m., and high schools no earlier than 8:30. The requirement is in line with an American Academy of Pediatrics finding that adolescents are better off sleeping later in the morning.
Start time at Flagler Palm Coast High School and Matanzas High School is 8:10 a.m. At Indian Trails and Buddy Taylor Middle, it’s 7:30. For elementary schools, it’s 9:10 a.m. In essence, Flagler County’s start times are in reverse order of that recommended by the science: younger students do better early, adolescents need more sleep.
According to a legislative analysis of the 2023 bill, “The AAP also recognizes that insufficient sleep in adolescents is an important public health issue which affects the health, safety, and academic success of middle and high school students. According to the AAP, a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep in adolescents is early school start times.”
The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, required districts to be in compliance by July 2026, or in time for the 2026-27 school year. The state appropriated all of $5 million, a relative pittance, to the 67 districts and to charter schools to help implement the changes.
In Flagler County, the board has been divided on the issue, weighing scientific evidence and the health of students against the convenience of parents and with district finances. Even though its student population has been flat for years, the district reduced its bus routes 32 percent (from 84 to 57) between October 2018 and October 2022. Later start times would require more routes. (Ridership declined 16 percent between 2018 and 2022.)
Later start times make it more difficult on working parents, Christy Chong, now the board chair, has argued, because it would mean earlier start times for elementary-age students, and therefore longer stays for them at extended-day, the afterschool program. And if anything, the local school board two years ago wanted to move start times earlier, not later.
Chong wasn’t an exception. Lawmakers got a lot of pushback from across the state. Earlier this year the Legislature amended the law to allow school districts to bypass the requirement, as long as they met certain conditions. The new law (SB 296) requires districts that don’t want to comply with the 2023 mandate to submit reports to the Florida Department of Education about their strategies, what local parents and faculty think, what public hearings were held to inform the public and hear opinions, how the change would affect district finances, what unintended consequences there may be.
The district has been checking off those reports.
Key to the exemption the district is seeking is a survey of parents and faculty through its “ParentSquare,” the closed portal that allows students, parents and faculty to communicate. The district disseminated the same survey to the public at large through social media. The surveys were online only. The survey drew 1,933 responses, mostly from parents and guardians. A quarter of them were Flagler school employees, with many of those being parents as well.
Assistant Superintendent Angela O’Brien presented the survey results to the school board at a workshop last Tuesday.
“It looks like they will not be changing the times at all in Flagler,” district spokesperson Don Foley, who’s worked with O’Brien on the initiative, said.
A plurality of respondents say a change in start times would be disruptive both at the beginning of the day and for extracurricular activities, and that it would complicate transportation during rush hour and add costs. But a plurality also said it would not cause them to change schools or jobs.
Yet a majority of respondents say a change in start times would allow their child to get enough sleep on school nights, and the same majority says it would not be disruptive to the child’s home life. Opinions were more split regarding disruptions in extracurricular activities.
Notably, few students say that a change in start time would allow them to get more sleep, but most say it would disrupt their home life and a plurality say it would affect their extracurriculars.
“Some folks said that there would be a conflict with their work schedule, particularly in the morning,” O’Brien said. “High school students who have after-school jobs or participate in extracurricular activities, that was noted as an impact more for the parents and employees than the students.”
Some respondents suggested the middle school start times are too early and should be swapped with high school times.
A large majority–68 to 70 percent–of respondents oppose mixing students from different age groups in the same buses. They would prefer elementary-age students not be mixed with middle or high school students, or high school students to be mixed in with middle school students. A fifth to a quarter of respondents would support mixing middle and high school students, but not elementary and high school students.
Board member Janie Ruddy proposed looking at organizing start times based on schools’ feeder patterns. For example, Old Kings Elementary, Indian Trails Middle and Matanzas High School could have their own sets of start times, while Bunnell Elementary, Buddy Taylor and Flagler Palm Coast High School would have a different pattern. Superintendent LaShakia Moore thought that might require additional bus routes, not fewer.
The idea is to acknowledge the science and to inform parents about it, “but also as a community we have to identify what is possible for us as far as being able to get those schedules aligned,” the superintendent said. “This is not a new discussion to our community. They voiced over the years that there is not a desire at this time to make the swap to have elementary starting earlier.”
Deborah Coffey says
It is becoming pretty obvious that most of today’s Republicans don’t care about anyone but themselves. The fish rots from the head.
Endless dark money says
Could it be the treasonous republicans defunded public schools and schools systems need money to run appropriately. Having different age kids starting 3 hours apart is great for working families lol.maybe get some stolen money back by republican fraudster schools that never opened….. or ask racist rons wife’s company for a loan of some pubic dollars!! Corrupt much?
Lock them up says
Chong the one that said schools are no longer safe from republican discrimination! She licked racist rons boot hard to get elected by the cult. Card board box would be a better fit for the position.