Superintendent Michael Beresford comments on the possibility of a change to school start times. Beresford hopes any changes will prove to be successful.

With increasing research and community support of later school start times, CHS is considering a switch to a new system for the 2021-2022 school year and beyond. According to Superintendent Michael Beresford, students and parents have voiced their desire for a later start.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people in the community and most seem to think it’s a good idea. It helps that a lot of the research indicates that getting kids extra sleep is really good for their health and education,” Beresford said.

Moreover, Beresford said in order to make changes for the 2021-2022 school year, a plan must be in place by the end of this school year.

“We need it a year in advance because if we decide to go through with start time change, we need a year to test everything and work out all the kinks. We can’t afford for there to be any problems with such a large scale change,” Beresford said.

However, according to student body president Tim Metken, changing start times is not valuable for all students.

“I prefer the current start time. As someone who frequents after-school activities, I appreciate the early release,” Metken said.

On the other hand, sophomore Spencer Fleischer said a later start time would be helpful to his learning.

“If I could sleep in just another hour that would help me be more alert and productive in school. I do not have many activities after school so I wouldn’t mind if school ended later,” Fleischer said.

Also, Beresford said that any changes to the start time would affect only the Carmel school district —  and would be different for different ages — as those decisions are made by individual school districts.

“As long as we go to school for the amount of time the state wants us to then we can arrange that time in whatever way we want. We are experimenting with varied starting and ending times for elementary, middle and high schoolers,” Beresford said.  By Misha Rekhter 

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