The Start Time Committee in South Portland is nearly ready to make its recommendations to the Board of Education about how to best implement pushing back start times at the high school and middle schools by at least 30 minutes next year.

The committee plans to make its final report to the school board at the Dec. 12 meeting, according to Superintendent of Schools Ken Kunin. South Portland schools began studying later start times almost a year ago in response to similar efforts in other school districts around Maine and to a local parent-led coalition that specifically requested later start times for students in their teens.

“We think this change is best for the health and education of our students and all indications are that we can make this a smooth and positive transition,” Kunin told the Current.

“While we do believe later start times will lead to better academic results for students, we (also) want to be clear that we view this as a serious public health and safety concern for our children,” Kunin added.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control have both released very compelling reports about the negative consequences of inadequate sleep for children and adolescents and issued strong recommendations for later start times for middle and high schools. We are excited that we are close to a plan to put the recommendations of the CDC and of pediatricians across the country into practice in South Portland,” he said.

Currently classes begin at 7:30 a.m. at South Portland High School and 7:55 a.m. at the city’s two middle schools – Mahoney and Memorial. The CDC recommendation is for school to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for teens.

Teens function best when they get at least eight to nine hours of sleep per night, a number of studies have shown. In an initial report provided to the school board this past summer, South Portland’s start times group said, “Teens are biologically programmed to stay up later and sleep later, but early school start times work against their (internal) clocks.”

The initial report from the committee said that the negative impacts of teens not getting enough sleep can include anxiety and depression, poorer attention, poorer problem solving skills and poorer academic performance.

At the Nov. 14 school board meeting, Kunin said that while moving school start times back for students at the high school and middle schools is feasible, such a change “must be handled carefully” using a “clear road map.”

Right now, he told the Current, the start time committee is doing a “final analysis to make sure the transportation to and from school works with the possible change in start times.”

Starting school later in the day for high school and middle school students is a notion that has the full support of students, parents and faculty, the school start times group said in its report this summer.

“Personally, I’m very supportive of this initiative as a teenager who needs every hour of sleep I can get,” Amelia Papi, a senior at South Portland High and a member of the start times committee, told the Current.

“I currently have first block off every other day and I’ve noticed a huge difference in my productivity and general attitude toward heading out for the day,” she said. “I’m better able to do my work at night, and even if I get up in the morning to do extra work, I have found that even an extra half hour of sleep is a complete game changer.”

Papi said the biggest concern she hears from peers is the worry about possible conflicts with sports schedules. “They’re worried that there won’t be enough time for practices or games and then homework afterward.”

“As a group we’ve really looked into this concern because it’s very important to the student body, and we want to make the transition as seamless as possible,” Papi said.

“I think it’s important to know that we’re not the first school to make this change. There have been a number of schools with later start times that (we’ve) been using as models for our own school system. Although I’ll be graduated before the change goes into effect, I believe it will be very successful and students will benefit academically,” she said.

Heather Fairfield, a parent member of the school start time group, is also “very supportive” of later middle school and high school start times. She and her husband have a son in sixth grade at Memorial Middle and another son who is a freshman at the Baxter Academy for Technology and Science in Portland.

“Our oldest son started to have issues with getting up early during his middle school years,” she told the Current. “Even with a reasonable bed time and a curfew on his use of electronics, he was tired, irritable and unenthused about school.”

In talking with other parents, Fairfield said, “we learned we were not alone.” As they researched ways to help their son be more ready for the school day, they came across the Start School Later coalition, which “has compiled a huge library of research showing that later school start times for adolescents can have a profound impact on student health and academic performance.”

That’s when Fairfield and her husband initially raised the issue with the school board in South Portland, hoping to convince members that starting school later would be beneficial to older students.

“I can share that our older son wakes for school around 40 minutes later than last year because his school starts at 8:30 a.m. He still goes to bed around the same time, (but) he heads off to school fed, more alert and with a much better attitude,” she said.

“Any change to schedules can present some challenges for families, but we are hoping that several months of advanced notice and the sheer fact that this change can improve student health and ability to learn will provide (enough) motivation and drive for parents to work through the change,” Fairfield said.

Students at South Portland High School could be starting school a half-hour later next academic year if the Board of Education approves pushing back start times for classes.