OCPS Board will hold a work session today on high school start times

ORANGE COUNTY Last fall, the Orange County School Board began researching a proposal to push back the start time of high schools to later in the morning. To further the discussion on the matter, the board will hold a work session at 4:30 p.m. today to evaluate that data that has been collected.

Over the last several weeks, thousands of parents, teachers and students participated in a survey regarding the proposal. The survey consisted of eight questions which aimed at finding out whether the community would support a time change decision and what start time people preferred.

According to data from the survey, about 55% of those surveyed believed that high school students would be either much better off or somewhat better off with a later start time to the school day.

During the board’s previous work session in January, members requested additional information be evaluated, including the responses specifically from high school teachers, parents of high-schoolers who also have children in elementary or middle schools and a breakdown of the responses from each region in Orange County.

This afternoon, the board plans to evaluate and discuss this new information and determine next steps.

The meeting will be held at the Ronald Blocker Educational Leadership Center, 445 West Amelia Street, Orlando. Audio from the meeting will be streamed online at boardmeetings.ocps.net.

Contact Brittany Gaines at [email protected].