{"id":332099,"date":"2026-08-28T19:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332099\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T19:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:30:13","slug":"new-york-school-districts-push-school-start-times-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/332099\/","title":{"rendered":"New York school districts push school start times later"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 Aiden Moretter is enjoying a night with his parents before the start of the school year. The sophomore is preparing for big changes as he heads back to the classroom.<\/p>\n

Fairport Central School District is one of the latest in New York state to push back school start times for the high school.<\/p>\n

“I like it. I get to sleep in more and do some homework. I don\u2019t want to do it at night before school starts,” said Moretter.<\/p>\n

“It wasn\u2019t about what you feel or think, it was about what\u2019s best for the kids,” said Brett Probenzano, Fairport Central School District superintendent.<\/p>\n

Middle and high school student<\/a>s will now start about an hour later, at 8:40 a..m, and end the day at 3:25 p.m. Elementary schools will now start about an hour earlier, at 7:45 a.m., with dismissal at 2:05 p.m.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a switch that school officials say comes after more than a decade of research.<\/p>\n

“So many things are occurring biologically and physiologically that they need rest. We\u2019ve studied it multiple times. We\u2019ve partnered with URMC, pediatricians, focus groups, community forums,” said Probenzano.<\/p>\n

The decision to push start times comes after a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics. In a 2014 study<\/a>, the AAP found that loss of sleep in adolescents can affect their physical health and safety, mental health and behavior concerns and lead to poor academic performance.<\/p>\n

Dr. Hedi Connolly, the director of pediatric sleep medicine for the University of Rochester Medical Center, has worked with Fairport in the years leading up to the change.<\/p>\n

“If you move the start time 30 minutes later, teens aren\u2019t just getting another 30 minutes of sleep. It\u2019s more like 45 minutes or an hour,” Connolly said. “The time they\u2019re expected to go to bed lines up with their biologic rhythm so they can fall asleep easier and wake up earlier.”<\/p>\n

The change doesn\u2019t just benefit teens. Connolly says it\u2019s also a positive switch for elementary students.<\/p>\n

“Elementary students are mostly already awake at that time, so it\u2019s not against their biologic rhythm to be starting earlier,” said Connolly.<\/p>\n

Eighth-grader Hanna Ladue struggled with the previous early start time.<\/p>\n

“Some mornings, I\u2019d have to wake up at 6 a.m., and I was so tired from the day before I just didn\u2019t want to do it,” said Ladue.<\/p>\n

But as an athlete, she has some concerns about how the later dismissal will affect practice.<\/p>\n

“I do tennis and that starts at 4 p.m. I\u2019m not getting out until 3:30 p.m. and that\u2019s not even with the bus, so that might be hard,” said Ladue.<\/p>\n

When the buses roll up, it\u2019s not just the students who will have an adjustment. It\u2019s the high school staff as well.<\/p>\n

“Some of the people who have been in for a while, like myself, it’s so brand new to us starting late, so I thought I\u2019d probably still be here nice and early like my normal schedule. Just have that quiet time before the kids get here to work. Our teaching staff, they’re looking forward to it. Apprehensive, just about, ‘Hey, it’s a different schedule, but they’re ready to go with it,\u2019” Fairport High School principal Patrick Grow said.<\/p>\n

District officials say communication will be key for everyone once the year starts.<\/p>\n

As kids get ready to go back to school, sleep experts say having a sleep schedule that matches their school schedule can help against any early morning meltdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 Aiden Moretter is enjoying a night with his parents before the start of the school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[67,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,18479,115,6317,200],"class_list":["post-332099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-education","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-rachel-niemi","tag-rochester","tag-swarm","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}