New Canaan Start Times - Sleep Equity for All Children

I am strongly opposed to starting elementary school at the proposed time of 7:45.

This time change would be incredibly detrimental to working parents and the sleep schedules of younger children.

This change would be a massive blow to dual-income working families both moving to and who already reside in New Canaan. As a working mother, I can't say that it would make sense to live in New Canaan if the trade off for amazing public school education is my children not having time with either parent during the week. Please do not make this change it would be devastating for both children's and parent's mental and physical health.

We honestly need to put our children first.

Please do not adopt this proposal. In order to "help" the high school students you are creating a great deal of difficulty at all other grade levels. The proposed start time of 9:15 for grades 5/6 is absurd. Students will have not enough time for homework, afterschool activities, friends and family time. Additionally these students are still young enough to require both before and after school care for dual income families which is an enormous burden. The new block schedule at the HS I think remedies some of the sleep concerns. I don't know a single HS student who supports this change.

The start times today, are balanced for working families, younger students and HS students with sports and extracurricular activities. The earlier start times are appropriate for the HS age group as they embark on adulthood and get on a schedule in line with having a career while still allowing them to have homework time with sports/activities. It does not make sense to put the early start times on young children who can be so affected by lack of sleep, lack of quality time with parents and attentiveness issues in the later afternoon. The negative impact on students, parents, teachers, the budget, and the RE market in New Canaan make it hard to understand why the BOE would even consider this change. The students, parents and teachers have raised their voices to keep start times the same, why is no one listening to the people this will affect? And to those saying unplug technology, that will make the earlier start times work for small children, you clearly don't have a touch on reality or understand the heart of why this change is opposed.

Against time change.

I do not approve any new changes.

Many talk about having moved to New Canaan because of the schools. It seems the private school community is thriving in NC, thus giving folks a choice. One cannot look at start times alone. One must look at the cost and an extra $1MM spent on buses seems ridiculous in a cost conscious environment to say nothing about $500k for a planetarium. Have a visit to the Hayden Planetarium for such needs

Do we care about our teachers? These start times will greatly affect our teachers and may even cause them to look elsewhere! All around not a good idea for everyone!!

This shouldn’t be a choice to begin with. Please don’t attempt to solve one problem by creating another.

As a working parent I will probably see my children max 20 minutes per day when they are in elementary school, if that, under the current proposed plan. And I only work in Greenwich. Many who commute on the train will not see their children during the week at all, unless they are kept up late and sacrifice sleep. A proposal regarding increased sleep for some students can not come at the cost of young students seeing their parents. In households where two parents commute, children could literally be parentless all week.

I strongly disagree with the 7:45 am start time for elementary children for a variety of reasons, including lack of sleep vs. sacrificing seeing working parents, the disparate impact on dual earner families, single parents, or anyone who cannot afford extra childcare, the zig-zag effect of earlier then later than earlier then later times which makes it even harder for families to plan, unintended consequences of having later grades start significantly later, property values impacted if we cannot attract young families, etc. etc. etc. Exhausted elementary students are not going to yield happy productive prepared middle and high school students.

School start times should stay the same.

I'd be embarrassed to be a board member of anything that places the burden of solving for a high schooler at the feet of a five year old.

District survey shows: 94% of HS teachers don’t want start time change, 64% of HS students don’t want start time change and the majority of parents support the current schedule. Keep start times the same — we have a high-performing district already and this isn’t the time, on the verge of a possible recession, to increase the BOE budget $1MM in perpetuity.

District survey shows: 94% of HS teachers don’t want start time change, 64% of HS students don’t want start time change, and majority of parents support the current schedule. Keep start times the same — we already have a high performing district and this is not the right time, on the verge of a possible recession, to increase the BOE budget $1 MM in perpetuity.

I strongly dislike the change

I think we should stay with the regular start times, if we have an extra hour with this start time we’re just gonna go to sleep later

745 start time for children is unacceptable.