Current Discussions:
Our district has shown to be flexible with school schedules. Recently, Ridge implemented a rotate-and-drop schedule, and during the pandemic, the school was able to create hybrid and online school schedules. Not to mention that on May 22, 2023, Superintendent Nick Markarian held a BOE meeting (Board of Education Meeting, May 23rd, 2023) to discuss changing the high school start time and even how to reduce the cost of the buses. The district is already working around the costs of our solution so implementing it will be significantly less challenging.
An Ongoing Discussion
There has also been discussion about delaying the commencement of high school for over four years with the most recent being at the Board of Education meeting on May 22, 2023. Superintendent Nick Markarian even stated that "school start times have significant implications on student health and performance in offering more or less sleep" and then talked about the science behind high school student sleep. In all of Mr. Markarian's new start-time models, the high school will start the latest and the elementary schools will start the earliest. Shown on the right, these models also align with the cost-efficient bussing models that the district wants to implement. Using our research and solution, we presented a bit of our project to our Superintendent and Board of Education during this meeting. Mr. Markarian even passed around paper and markers for us to write down our ideas which he and the BOE will use in their decision-making.
Project Citizen group members Natalie Ramirez (middle left) and Samantha Babcock (middle right) with Board of Education members Tim Salmon (left) and Robin McKeon (right).
What is the Current Situation
Junior health currently covers the importance of sleep which taught us how to better manage our schedules and that prioritizing sleep is a must for us to function best. Health teachers of all grades at Ridge already touch on many different topics during the course so devoting a few days to a week on the importance of sleep will not shift it around too much. In fact, it can even be tied in with the days spent going over mental health that's taught every year. We presented this idea to the Board of Education at the May 22 meeting so it's now on the table. At the meeting, there was talk of rewriting the math curriculum with the only costs being textbooks and teachers to help write it. As health doesn't use textbooks and a sleep education curriculum exists, tweaking it for each grade will be an easy change to make. The district also recently sent out a survey for parents and students to fill out regarding the health curriculum of the district. Having received over 400 responses, it's safe to say that people want a change. Sleep education could be the key to it all.