The Shawano School District announced it is suspending its discussion about school start time until "further notice".
An ad hoc committee was formed to examine the District's school start times. The committee made a recommendation to the Board on March 7 to adjust the district's school start times. The committee recommended elementary students start as close to 8am as possible and the middle and high school students starting as close to 8:30am as possible. The committee used several national studies on sleep and adolescents to support their recommendations.
"We hope to continue this dialogue about school start times in our community and further explore different options in the future." said Administrator Gary Cumberland
The District says they received a great deal of feedback from the community on school start times over the last several months which helped bring them to the decision to suspend any action on the committee's recommendation.
Shawano Board of Education President Tyler Schmidt says "We recognize the energy and efforts of the Board's school start time ad hoc committee and appreciate the time they've spent researching and discussing different options for our students. However, this issue had left our community divided and we feel that it is in the best interests of our students, staff, families and community to take a step back from this issue for now."
The District says a new committee may be formed sometime in the future to expand upon and make a definitive school time recommendation with supporting details specific to the Shawano community.
