The Lindbergh Schools Board of Education voted last month to approve new school start times for elementary, middle and high school students.

The board voted 7-0 at its March 14 meeting for the new start times which will take effect in the 2023-2024 school year. The new start times for next school year are 8:45 a.m. – 3:35 p.m. for elementary, 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. for middle school and 7:45 a.m. – 2:45 p.m. for high school.

The new times come on the recommendation from a special task force made up of teachers, students, parents, board members and administrators that has been reviewing and revising school start times since the 2019-2020 school year. In 2021-2022, the start times were changed for elementary and high school students. The task force sent a follow-up survey to the community that year to see how it felt about the changes, which ultimately resulted in the new recommendations for the 2023-2024 year.

“Two key elements came up in our survey last school year. One was that the instructional time at the end of the day for elementary was not having the value that we wanted … the other thing that came out really clearly … our efficiencies at the end of the day were really problematic,” Chief Academic Officer Tara Sparks said at a board meeting in February. “It is much more difficult for students to be picked up at the middle school end of the day and then get onto the high school campus when you’re talking about 39 buses having to converge onto the campus all at once.”