As Fairfax County Public Schools weighs options for how to start middle schools later in the morning, some parents in the Northern Virginia school district are concerned about the impact such a change would have on their kids’ routines.
The school district’s middle schools start at 7:30 a.m., and in September 2023, the county hired a consulting firm to craft a plan for having middle school classes start at 8 a.m. or later, citing the benefits of additional sleep for middle school-aged children.
In a report presented to the school board last month, the firm crafted six potential options that range from starting middle school classes between 8 and 9:40 a.m. The result of at least one of those changes, though, would be shifting elementary school start times back by 30 minutes.
“We both work for the federal government. We work in the office full time. We have commutes,” said one Fairfax County parent who asked WTOP not to be named. “We have to get our child to school, and so it makes it virtually impossible for any working parent to take care of their child without getting before-school care in the morning, when you push a 9:20 a.m. start time even further back to 9:50 a.m.”
Under what the school system is calling “Option E,” elementary schools would start between 9 a.m. and 9:50 a.m. and middle schools would begin at 8 a.m. The county’s Office of Transportation Services is recommending that choice, because it is cost neutral and would be the easiest to implement, according to school system documents.
A later start time for elementary school kids, the parent said, would lengthen the time some students spend at before-school care, “which isn’t ideal, right? We want her to spend as much time in a productive learning environment.”
Delaying after-school programming, the parent said, could complicate sports and other activities that are “made a little bit more difficult by pushing that start time back.”
“It just makes life more difficult, instead of more reasonable, as folks are trying to transition back in the office and trying to make sure that their child is being taken care of,” the parent said.
The school district’s transportation department also recommended an option called “C2,” which would have elementary schools start between 8 a.m. and 9:10 a.m. Middle schools would start at 9:40 a.m. under that plan.
In its report to the school board, the firm Prismatic Services said a pilot could be considered for next year, but FCPS Board member Melanie Meren said no changes will be made for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
The three principals’ associations didn’t support a shift of middle school start times, according to the report, because the plan “presents several significant challenges.”
“The board did not act on the recommendations and does not have a plan right now to act on the recommendations,” Meren said. “The superintendent’s budget proposed in January also does not include acting on changing middle school start times. And there was a cost associated with most of the recommendations, because if it involves more buses, that’s going to mean buying more buses and finding more drivers, or perhaps other things that are part of the solution.”
The school division could consider changing middle school start times at the same time it makes boundary changes.
More information about possible start time changes is available online.
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