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The Dunne Dispatch (Middle School Start Times) - 02/14/2025
Friends and Neighbors:
The School Board is considering potential changes to start times for Elementary Schools (ES), Middle Schools (MS), and High Schools (HS). I would like to solicit your views because these changes could impact your childcare arrangements, extracurricular activities (to include athletic activities), traffic patterns, and work schedules. Please participate in the survey below to inform my decision on which option to support as your School Board Member.
As background, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that Middle Schools (MS) and High Schools (HS) start no earlier than 8:30 AM:
“The [AAP] recognizes insufficient sleep in adolescents as an important public health issue that significantly affects the health and safety, as well as the academic success, of our nation’s middle and high school students. Although a number of factors, including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands, negatively affect middle and high school students’ ability to obtain sufficient sleep, the evidence strongly implicates earlier school start times (i.e., before 8:30 AM) as a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep, as well as circadian rhythm disruption, in this population. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has now demonstrated that delaying school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss and has a wide range of potential benefits to students with regard to physical and mental health, safety, and academic achievement. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly supports the efforts of school districts to optimize sleep in students and urges high schools and middle schools to aim for start times that allow students the opportunity to achieve optimal levels of sleep (8.5–9.5 hours) and to improve physical (e.g., reduced obesity risk) and mental (e.g., lower rates of depression) health, safety (e.g., drowsy driving crashes), academic performance, and quality of life.”
FCPS MS start times have advanced over time from 8:45 AM in 1961 to 7:30 AM in 2025. FCPS HS start times exhibited a similar trend (from 8:15 AM in 1961 to 7:20 AM in 2012), but the School Board changed HS start times to 8:10 AM in 2016. FCPS has studied potential changes to MS start times for many years, but now the School Board is considering what the start times should be and when the new start times should be implemented.
Please click here to participate in the survey, which includes the principal options identified by FCPS and its outside consultant, Prismatic. Please respond by February 28, 2025.
Please note these options are largely cost-neutral.* If you would like to review the most recent analysis by FCPS/Prismatic, please click here to view the materials for Agenda Item 2.02 - Middle School Start Time.
Very Respectfully,
 Mateo Dunne, Mount Vernon District Representative
* Two options are cost-neutral, one option might add up to $1.1 million to the transportation budget, and one option might add up to $2.1 million to the transportation budget.
The views contained within this newsletter reflect the views of the individual school board member who is the publisher of this newsletter and may not reflect the views of the Fairfax County School Board.
© Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax County, Virginia
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