Barrow County Board of Education Keeps School Start Times

This week, Barrow County Board of Education met and voted on changing the start times for elementary, middle and high schools.  In a 5-4 decision, the board decided to keep their current start time schedule.

This decision was highly debated in last week’s work session.  Currently high schools in Barrow County start at 7:30 a.m. which some say is too early.  Proponents of the change cited several reasons, such as proven scientific research that middle and high school students perform better with more sleep, .

But for many on the board it came down to a financial issue.  District 3 representative, Connie Wehunt, stated in their discussion, “When we start talking about this much money–buying new buses, hiring new employees…there are other needs in our school system that are greater.  I have a problem with spending this much money to make it easier on kids to get up at a later hour, and even though the data is there we have been using this old time and have been successful.”

-Brett Homer