Joelle Lang-Fredman
WMAL.com
ANNE ARUNDEL — (WMAL) Students will be arriving up to 15 minutes late to school in Anne Arundel County next year. But they won’t be getting trouble for it.
The Anne Arundel County Board of Education voted Wednesday night to change the start time of public high schools from 7:13 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. and elementary and middle schools 15 minutes later.
The shift would begin in August 2017.
Bob Mosier, Chief Communications Officer of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, said that later start times make for better students.
“The science around later start times for adolescents is very clear, and no one in our school system quibbles with the science,” Mosier said.
Some parents feared that the later dismissals would take away from afternoon activities.
“There are those who wanted an even bigger push, there are those who wanted no push at all,” Mosier said. “We had a series of forums last spring to talk about this issue. We have studied in extensively, trying to get as close as we could to the science. This is the decision the board adopted.”
Mosier said that parents should have enough time before the next school year begins to prepare for this adjustment.
“One of the reasons that the board did this when it did it is because now we’ve got ten months or so before the next school year begins,” Mosier said. ” There is plenty of time to get that communication out there and convey to folks what the exact school hours are.”
This change cost the board $618,000 for the price of buying 10 new school buses. Previously, public and private schools shared buses and now that schools will begin at different times they will need separate modes of transportation.
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