School Start Times Project

On December 10, 2018, the Board of Education approved the motion that the Board of Education rescind the motion that was adopted on October 23, 2017, regarding the implementation of a change in school start times for 2019–2020.

In Ridgefield, we are committed to the social, emotional, and physical well-being of our students.  We are engaged in changing school start times in the 2019-2020 school year because we view sleep as a critical component of students’ overall health and well-being.

All stakeholders - students, parents, teachers, childcare providers, businesses who hire teens, or offer before or after-school programs, sports coaches, elected officials, voters, health professionals, and public safety providers - all have important contributions to this discussion. This webpage has been created to provide the Ridgefield community with a variety of resources to educate and inform those discussions. Included are links to national research, reports on how other school districts have addressed this issue, a timeline, and links to our local research and presentations. We will continue to update this page as key information becomes available.

Understanding the logistics of the transportation provided to our students is key. In order to change school start times, the routes, pickup times, quantity of bus waves, and quantity of buses may need to be changed. Our current four-tier bell time system is outlined here

For an overview of the research, the challenges of implementing later start times, and associated best practices, we invite you to view a video of Board of Education member Margaret Stamatis’ May 2017 report on what she learned at the Adolescent Sleep, Health and School Start Time National Conference in Washington, D.C. Click here for the referenced research presented at the conference.

Please contact us with any questions.

Community Steering Committee

The thirty-two member BOE School Start Times Steering Committee includes BOE members, district leaders, building managers, teachers, PTA representatives, parents, and leaders from a wide range of community organizations. See the full list of members here.