This past week I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Maureen Reusche, the Superintendant of Cherry Hill Public Schools.  The topic of the meeting was the 7:30 am start time for our schools next year. She gave me some very interesting information on the topic.
The first question I asked was “How did this idea come about?” Dr. Reusche explained that her administrative team started by looking at the high school schedule. They went back to 2009 and started to look to see how time was used during the school day.
They thought a useful thing to do was go out and visit other districts to see what kind of schedule they had and how they used that time. Dr. Reusche said, “as we were going through, we looked at some interesting models and talked to many people. As time went on we saw more and more districts where their school days were much longer than ours. It gave them the opportunity to do things that were different in the schedule and that we were not able to do. So a couple of times during committee meetings we thought we can extend our school day and get more time in our school day.”  Dr. Reusche went on to explain that the school day (the time of day that a school employee works) is considered a part of “working conditions” and must be negotiated with a bargaining unit. Therefore, they knew that this concept was not something that the scheduling committee could just look at and change. It would also have to be submitted and negotiated between the school board, in conjunction with the administration and the teachers association.
Dr. Reusche also shared that Cherry Hill parents were not involved in the decision making because it was part of working conditions. She explained that in the negotiation process everything that you are discussing remains confidential between both parties. After the teachers association ratifies or votes to approve their contract that is when the information can become public. I then asked, “How will the earlier start time benefit the district?”  Dr. Reusche stated, “My belief is that we have many of our teachers providing quality instruction. If I can work with the board and the teachers association to get more time, to create more opportunities for students in the school district, and to be in an environment where they are experiencing quality instruction…in a way it is kind of like a no brainer for me to look at this.  We have good teachers, and they provide good instruction for students.  We know that research is out there that the most important thing in a classroom is a good teacher. So if we can provide even more quality instruction for students, I would always look to do that.”
I asked her if other schools in the Camden County area are on this same schedule. Dr. Reusche explained that there are some schools already in this range. Some start at 7:10 am or 7:20 am and a couple begin at 7:30 am and 7:35 am. She said she did not do an exhaustive search of all 600 districts across the state of New Jersey. However, her team looked at the state school report card that is online. The Department of Education puts this information out. They went through and searched various districts. They studied the districts that Cherry Hill likes to compare itself to.  The administration looked at other higher performing districts to see their starting and ending times. Cherry Hill was nowhere near the first school to have students starting earlier in the morning. The next question I asked her was, “Has it been observed in other districts to see how the student’s concentration levels and focus were that early in the morning?”  Dr. Reusche said they had not gone out and conducted those observations.  However, when she looked at the number of high performing schools that had earlier start times and have done so for a period of time- it was found that they continued to be high functioning/high performing with the earlier start time.   Just by this observation, she believes that they are not experiencing difficulties with student concentration and they continue to be successful school districts.
I asked her if there are any plans for a survey to go out to students and parents next year to learn what they think of the change once it has occured.  Dr. Reusche stated that they have not currently talked about that, but there may be something down the road if Dr. O’Breza, Dr. Meloche, and Dr. Burti wish to do that.
As for where the extra time will be going,  Dr.  Reusche told me that right now she believes that the high school principals are looking at adding additional time onto each one of the classes.  This seems to be the best way at the high school level.
While researching the benefits and risks of this additional time, Dr. Reusche spent a lot of time reading studies looking into teens and daily sleep requirements.  Dr. Reusche thinks anytime we look at studies, we have to make sure that we carefully examine the group of students being tested, the circumstances, and whether the strategy was beneficial or not.  Unfortunately, there is not a lot of research out there that is driving everyone. If there was, more schools across the nation would be making the same change. Still, many districts are adding on more time. Some are making a change to earlier start times, some later, but no one is really sure exactly what is going to make that difference.  She also had to weigh that if they added time onto the end of the day at the high school they would have to add time onto the elementary schools. The buses would not have enough time to go from high school runs to middle school runs to elementary school runs. They would then have to add a half an hour on to the elementary schools. She would then be putting buses with very young children on the road at a time where traffic is quite busy within this community.  After weighing all of these factors, it became clear that the extra time would have to be added in the morning.
I closed by asking Dr. Reusche if I could read her my Board of Education statement. I did not get a chance to read it the night of the Board meeting.  She was delighted to listen to my opinions. After I was done, she said that it was very well written and made many valid points. I thanked Dr. Reusche for taking time out of her busy schedule to meet with me.  I hope I have the opportunity to interview her again as more issues arise in the district.