Southampton School Officials Revisit Later Start Times

Southampton School District officials on Tuesday revisited the possibility of pushing the high school start time forward by 24 minutes to give students a little extra sleep in the morning—something researchers say is crucial for teenagers.Southampton High School Principal Dr. Brian Zahn presented School Board members with a tentative draft of what the new schedule would look like. Students would start the day at 7:51 a.m. and finish at 3 p.m. Currently, high school students are expected to be in the building no later than 7:26 a.m., and a warning bell goes off before the start of first period at 7:31 a.m. Dr. Zahn said the high school day could not go beyond 3 p.m. because the athletics program schedules games against other schools after that time. If Southampton eventually moves forward with a later start time, it would be following in the footsteps of the Sag Harbor School District, which started classes at Pierson Middle/High School 15 minutes later beginning last year.Southampton’s proposed high school schedule is in an exploratory stage, and, as School Board members discovered on Tuesday, there are a number of factors that need to be considered before making a decision. Board member Andy Brindle noted that the school buses would run into more traffic on the roads later in the morning.Dr. Zahn also pointed out that district officials would need to look into changing the start time of all three schools to coordinate bus schedules, and would have to look into contract agreements with the bus drivers, because under the current agreement the district would have to pay overtime with a different schedule in place. “There are a lot of layers to this change that we have to explore,” he said.This is not the first time that district officials have looked into a later start time. In fact, they have looked at possibilities for the past two years, but never followed through.