Worcester getting into their school start time discussion

The Worcester Public School District is getting into their school start time discussion. Yes, remember that? Franklin put it aside to deal with the Davis Thayer issue and then the pandemic hit. It is still sitting on the sidelines. 

The Davis Thayer issue remains only partially resolved, so it would seem that the Franklin school start time discussion is not likely to resume anytime soon. 

The decision to close Davis Thayer effective September 2021 was made by the School Committee at their Feb 9, 2021 meeting. Planning on the transition of Thayer students to the Keller facility for September are underway. The FY 2022 budget is being adjusted to account for what savings and/or expenses would occur to make the transition seamless for both school and Town sides of the budget. (The School budget handles the education side, the Town budget handles the facility operation side.)

The decision to make the Davis Thayer building 'surplus' for the School District has not yet be scheduled. The Town of Franklin can't do much officially without that notification from the School District. 

The next big item the School Committee (and community) will get into should be development of the 'master plan' for the school district. Recall that the facility utilization report revealed the District could operate with less schools than it currently has. The excess capacity could be addressed by closing additional schools and potentially restructuring to operate with three elementary schools, one middle school all feeding to Franklin High. How to get to this position, if it is desired, is what the 'master plan' should work on.

Running with excess capacity is a budget issue and will need to be addressed sooner or later.  In the meantime, you can read what Worcester is starting here

http://who-cester.blogspot.com/2021/03/school-start-times.html

Washington Post had an article recently touching on how sleep times have been affected by the remote learning schedules of the pandemic:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/teenage-sleep-remote-learning-school-time/2021/03/26/29d3c004-898b-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html

Worcester getting into their school start time discussion

Refer to the Meeting Notes page for all the reporting and audio files for the prior School Committee and subcommittee meetings  

  https://www.franklinmatters.org/p/meeting-notes.html