Fairfax County leaders consider changing school start times

In Fairfax County, school board members now weighing major changes to school start times, a decision that could impact thousands of students as well as their families. Fox 5's Shireen Rojek joins us live with all the options on the table. Shireen? Yeah, Andrea, the heart of this discussion is student health, primarily the health of middle schoolers who right now start school at 730 in the morning. So the big question is, how can those students get more sleep without causing major disruptions for everyone else? Now, the school board held a work session. They went through some options and their impacts. They say that this will not be an easy decision. And some of these options, though, are not set in stone. The students are first. It has to be what is best for the students, which is not necessarily going to be what's the most convenient for the adults that are in their lives, whether it be their parents or their teaching staff. We don't necessarily need to stay with 30 minutes or this other option. It can be, as Mr. Mewick said, we can adjust to 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but as long as the whole system moves one way or the other, there's not an additional cost to that. Fairfax County middle schools start at 7.30 in the morning, earlier than sleep experts recommend for adolescents. One proposal would push that to 9.20, but some elementary students would then start as early as 7 a.m. That option would cost nearly $1.7 million annually in new bus drivers. Another option would shift all school start times about 30 minutes later at no additional projected cost. The third option would leave schedules unchanged. Now, new data also shows as many as 19. 15,000 students could be affected by limited morning daylight under the elementary first plan, and any changes would require coordinating bus routes, staffing, after-school activities. And with thousands of students potentially traveling to school before daylight, the district is also having to explore additional safety measures, including reflective gear, better lit bus stops, and increased adult supervision. There's a big behavioral piece that's got to go with this, and the team alluded to it about informing parents and kids about wearing reflective gear and whatnot, but this certainly ties into all the traffic safety work and the actual road safety that we need to be receiving from county and state and federal. Community input will also be a big part of this decision. A survey is going to be put out in a few weeks. And a final decision, a vote is coming in December. But changes district-wide will not take place until the 2027-2028 school year.