Dear HP Community,
As I have previously shared with you, we have been analyzing the many challenges of changing school start times to be later for adolescents. This includes students at our middle and high school. The research overwhelmingly indicates the need for later school start times, and as such it became a district and board goal to support and recommend later start times as close to 8:30 a.m. as possible. Additionally, our goal was also to provide the option for high school students being bussed for the later start time.
To that end, I am pleased to share that last night at the Board of Education meeting the Board approved the following recommendation for the 2023-2024 school year start and end times:
Irving Primary School - 8:10 a.m. to 2:40 p.m.
Bartle Elementary School - 7:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Middle School - 8:10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
High School - A period 8:10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
High School - 1st period 9:02 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Moving forward, we will be submitting our transportation bids in May, the Board of Education will work on negotiating a couple of minor changes to the collective bargaining agreement(s) where necessary, and the central and school leadership teams will continue working to ensure school schedules align to our “whole child” philosophy.
Sincerely,
Dr. Nicosia