Elementary School Start Times to Remain Unchanged for Next Year

There are five elementary schools in Winchester with three schools – , and – starting school at 8:30 a.m. The other two schools in the district – and – begin their day at 8:45 a.m.

In January, asked the elementary principals to look at possibly adjusting the start time of the day, so that all five of the schools would start and end at the same time. The principals at Lincoln, Muraco and Vinson-Owen looked at moving their start time back to 8:45 a.m. to coincide with Lynch and Ambrose.

The goal, according to McAlduff, was to make bus pick-up easier at the three early-start schools. Currently, the day ends at 2:35 p.m., but buses might not show up for another 10 to 15 minutes later.

McAlduff also said that organizing professional development across grade levels at all the schools proved difficult since the periods don’t line up.

But parents at both the early and late-start schools argued against a time change.

“A later start time affects families where two parents work,” said Winchester resident Joan Smith. “Pushing the time back could make us late for work. Coming in after 9 a.m. is frowned upon.”

Swift went on to say that she would not be in favor of just adding more after-school programs.

“More programs would just add more stuff to their already booked day,” said Swift whose children attend Lincoln. “This would push morning meetings back, volunteer opportunities would be limited and eliminate parent participation.”

She was not alone in her concern for pushing start times back.

“I'm concerned that a later start time would prevent parents who work in Boston from getting to work on time,” said resident, Susan Howland.

There were some suggestions that, instead of pushing the start times back to meet Lynch and Ambrose, they move the start times earlier to meet the other three schools.

According to McAlduff, there is no proposed time change on the table. The principals are only looking at possible alternatives.

“We’re just having informal conversations with the three principals,” McAlduff said. “The feedback we’ve gotten clearly indicates that this is not a simple change. But we think it’s a good idea to have all five schools on the same schedule. We’re going to look at a later start time and an earlier one.”

McAlduff said there would be no changes instituted for September. However, with the construction of a set to be completed by 2013, the will begin to look at redistricting and potentially have all those changes take place when the new school goes online.

“We’re not proposing any changes for the next school year,” McAlduff said. “We’re going to ramp up the discussion at the beginning of next year. This needs to be a long-term, strategic decision. We’re going to start to redraw the elementary districts the next few months. But we need to look at it some more before we make any decisions.”