With research citing the impact of sleep deprivation on children, area school districts mull delaying school start times.

In response to the mounting body of evidence indicating that a later start time is beneficial for both high school and middle school students, local educators are gathering this week to begin the debate on what that might look like for their individual school districts.

On Wednesday, Oct. 14, new South Portland Superintendent Ken Kunin will seek permission from the school board to create a small study group that would focus on how to best implement a later start time, while also reviewing the available research.

And, on Thursday, Oct. 15, educators belonging to the Sebago Alliance, a collaborative of five school districts, including Scarborough, established in 2004 to enhance educational and business services, will meet to discuss whether there is regional interest in delaying the start of school for older students.

Both meetings were held after the Current’s deadline, but Kunin and George Entwistle, the superintendent of schools in Scarborough, say the issue is an important one that requires much deliberation.

It’s not just educational leaders that think so. In South Portland a local chapter of Start School Later, a national advocacy group, was founded last year. The group has about 35 official members, and about 50 parents of students in South Portland also signed an online petition requesting the school district to implement later start times for high school and middle school kids.

John Heffernan, a teacher at Mahoney Middle School, is a member of the local Start School Later group, which was founded by his wife, Heather Fairfield.

Heffernan said the later school start movement is not simply about “kids just being a little groggy or yawning during the school day, although academic focus, behavior and learning obviously suffer when students are insufficiently rested.”

In South Portland, the high school starts at 7:30 a.m., and the middle schools at 7:55 a.m. Scarborough High School starts at 7:35 a.m., and Scarborough Middle School at 7:45 a.m.

Heffernan said that pushing for later school start times is “more about reducing all the negative health consequences that we now know can develop.”

Other school districts in the state have already moved to later start times for high school students, including Cape Elizabeth (7:55 a.m.), Westbrook (7:50 a.m.) and Old Orchard Beach (8 a.m.).

But very few schools in Maine have pushed the start time back to 8:30 a.m. or later, which is the recommendation of most researchers.

Entwistle is glad that the Sebago Alliance, which also includes schools in Gorham, Windham, Westbrook and Standish, is taking up the topic of starting the school day later because there “is compelling research related to the benefits of having school start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for middle and high school” students.

He said the benefits of a later start time are “fairly well established and include (physical and mental) health benefits, improved student learning and performance, higher levels of student engagement and improved safety, with fewer sleepy young drivers on the road.”

Kunin agreed.

“Research suggests that better-rested students are better students. (And) in the end we want to set the conditions (that allow) our students to do their best,” he said.

Heffernan, who has two children in the South Portland schools – a fifth- and eighth-grader – added, “Proper sleep and timing is critical to proper body and brain development, academic performance and physical and mental health for teens.

“Short-changing this sleep cycle in adolescents is linked to many serious short-term and long-term ills such as obesity, diabetes, decreased function of the immune system, drug use and increased rates and severity of depression and anxiety, along with much higher rates of automobile accidents,” he said.

While Kunin and Entwistle believe it’s necessary to consider later start times, both said barriers to instituting a later start include the impact on busing, after-school activities and the family schedules of both students and school district employees.

Other considerations include child care, participation in non-school-related activities such as private music or art lessons, and how school buildings get used, with many districts offering their facilities to community groups during non-school hours.

However, Kunin said, the biggest barrier, by far, to moving back the starting time for high-school and middle-school students is transportation.

“We stagger school start times based upon the capacity of our buses to transport students to school,” he said. “Scheduling for interscholastic athletics also becomes an issue, especially if other high schools do not match a later start schedule.”

But, Heffernan said, these considerations should not stop school districts from implementing later start times for older students.

“We are optimistic that reasonable solutions and compromises can be found,” he said this week. “To believe we are simply locked into what can be a harmful and counterproductive school schedule for our teenagers, with no other viable options for busing and athletics, seems rather pessimistic and unreasonable.”

He also said that “most other high schools around the area and country already start and end later than we do in South Portland, yet they still make it work without sacrificing athletic programs.”

While Entwistle believes it would be best “to think through this issue together on a more regional basis,” Kunin said his job is to “explore the possibilities and decide what is best for South Portland” alone, without reference to what other school districts might be doing.

However, Entwistle said this week, “it would be very difficult for one district to do this in isolation.”

He said the meeting of the Sebago Alliance scheduled for Thursday should give the participating districts “a sense of the level of interest here in southern Maine in making some fundamental changes to school schedules.”

“It is not something for the faint of heart to take on unless they are committed to it because there will absolutely be pushback from a number of directions,” Entwistle said.

In terms of the next steps in Scarborough, he said that would be based in large part on what happens at Thursday’s meeting.

“We will see if there is a critical mass of districts that are willing to move this exploration of schedule changes to the next level,” Entwistle said, while adding that “we are not talking about making changes in this current school year.”

Meanwhile, Kunin will wait to see whether the South Portland Board of Education approves his request for the appointment of a study group.

Kunin said he envisions the study group as consisting of himself, along with staff members, students and parents.

“We will also bring in individuals with expertise in transportation and athletic scheduling and (those) who have worked through this process in other districts to inform our thinking,” Kunin said.

He said if the school board decides to move forward with later start times for the city’s high school and two middle schools, there would also be a thorough public input process, adding it would still be several years before any scheduling changes are implemented.

Both the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics have recommended later school start times for teens and pre-teens.

In late summer 2014 the pediatrics academy published a policy statement calling on school districts across the country to change their start times to 8:30 a.m. or later for high school and middle school students.

“Doing so will align school schedules to the biological sleep rhythms of adolescents, whose sleep-wake cycles begin to shift up to two hours later at the start of puberty,” the pediatrics academy website states.

A National Sleep Foundation poll found that 59 percent of sixth- through eighth-graders and 87 percent of high-school students in the United States were getting less than the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep on school nights.

For Heffernan, it seems “very unwise to continue a practice that several respected medical groups universally agree is significantly harmful to the development (of teenagers) from a health and wellness standpoint and (which is) also counterproductive to their learning. If we don’t prioritize health and education for our kids as parents and educators, what are we prioritizing?”

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