Cedar Rapids schools consider later start time for middle, high schools

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids school board is expected to approve a calendar Monday for the 2023-24 school year with few changes from the current year, although a calendar committee is exploring pushing the daily start time for middle and high school to later in the morning.

Two of the most notable changes on the proposed calendar are the addition of snow make up days to the end of the year instead of having a make up days in the middle of the year, and changing spring break from the second week of March to March 18-22 to align with Kirkwood Community College’s spring break.

Late starts and early release times will not be made up unless more than 25 hours of instructional time were missed since the district already has an extra 26.5 hours built in to the calendar, Deputy Superintendent Nicole Kooiker said during a presentation to the school board last month.

The first day of school will be Aug. 23, and the last day will be June 3, 2024, according to the proposed calendar.

A public hearing is being held Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom at the Educational Leadership and Support Center, 2500 Edgewood Rd. NW in Cedar Rapids, before the school board votes on the calendar.

A calendar committee last year began exploring options, including whether or not the start and end times for elementary and secondary schools should be switched. Elementary currently starts at 8:50 a.m. and ends at 3:50 p.m. Secondary starts at 7:50 a.m. and ends at 2:50 p.m.

Kooiker said the calendar committee proposed this change to begin gathering community input. “Making that type of calendar change impacts everyone in the community,” she said.

Starting the school day later can help middle and high school students get enough sleep, improve their health, academic performance and quality of life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends middle and high schools not start until 8:30 a.m. or later to give students the opportunity to get the amount of sleep they need.

“Significant change takes time in education,” said Eriece Colbert, equity coach in the Cedar Rapids school district.

“All the research points to switching it,” school board member Cindy Garlock said.

The proposed 2023-24 calendar also includes additional days off for staff — at least one for each month of the school year — after hearing feedback from educators that it would be nice to have more days off throughout the year, Kooiker said.

The calendar committee began meeting in September and is made up of educators, parents and community members. The committee gathered community input from a survey open from Oct. 12 to Dec. 3, that received 3,500 responses. About 2,200 of those were from parents and guardians, 1,400 were from staff and other responses were from community members and students.

Proposed Cedar Rapids Community School District Calendar 2022-23 by Gazetteonline on Scribd

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