TVDSB hitting snooze on school start times with late start pilot project

Some high schools students with the Thames Valley District School Board will start classes an hour later under a new pilot project. 

The later start time is part of a $25,000 pilot project approved by the TVDSB at last week's budget meeting after reviewing studies that show later start times improve grades and attendance while reducing risks of car crashes and depression.

"This might be just the perfect solution," said TVDSB trustee Sheri Polhill at the school board's budget meeting. "It might increase our student achievement and the only way to know is to approve the money and give it a pilot."

The board is currently reaching out to secondary schools to see if any will offer to take part in the pilot project. It will likely begin in fall 2018.

Sleep could save lives

"I'm supporting this as part of a safe schools initiative," said trustee Graham Hart. "In particular, the issues in Oxford and Woodstock with regards to suicides in the past year." 

• Woodstock youth suicides have community seeking answers 

Five young people took their own lives over four months in Oxford County in 2016. Students responded by walking out of schools in Woodstock to protest the school board. 

"One of the themes that really came out was tiredness and lack of sleep," said Hart, adding there's also a co-relation between the number of car crashes teens are involved in and the hour they start school. 

"I think this is a significant amount of money to at least...look at the whole issues of the relationship of being tired and the possibility of starting school at a different time," he said. 

​'Long overdue'

The $25,000 late start program was listed as a priority in the budget process because it's a "pilot study that is long overdue," according to a 2017-2018 Budget Discussion Template provided to CBC News by the school board.

The TVDSB cited a study from 2014 reviewing late start times at eight high schools in three states involving more than 9,000 students. 

The results show that "teens getting less than eight hours of sleep reported significantly higher depression symptoms, greater use of caffeine, and are at a greater risk for making poor choices for substance use."

"The number of car crashes for teen drivers from 16 to 18 years of age was significantly reduced by 70 per cent when a school shifted start times from 7:35 A.M. to 8:55 A.M.," according to the TVDSB's summary of the study. 

The board has not said which schools will be part of the pilot program.