Bethel Park School District pauses decision on changing start times
Bethel Park School District has delayed making a change to the start of the school day.
Administrators considered pushing back school times, much like the Upper St. Clair School District did in 2023.
Daily classes at the high school and Independence Middle School start at 7:25 a.m. Neil Armstrong Middle School starts at 8:05 a.m. while students from the district’s five elementary schools begin classes at 9:20 a.m.
Superintendent Dr. James Walsh said the move was being considered to help students gain more sleep.
“The committee did a pretty extensive survey of our parents, our students and our staff to get their opinions on the options,” Walsh explained. “We had a little more than 2,000 people participate in the survey, which I think is a good indicator of people’s interest.”
The district surveyed parents and students, with the majority of participants favoring pushing back the high school start time by as much as an hour. Teachers, staff and administration were opposed.
Parents of elementary school students who responded don’t want to see that start time altered.
Changing the time for one group of students and not another would affect bus runs. The district currently has three bus runs and pushing back the high school start time would interfere with one of the others.
“We can’t have everybody starting at the same time because of buses,” Walsh said. “It became obvious to the committee that while it makes sense medically, emotionally and academically to make this move for the older kids, it comes down to practicality and do we even have the buses to do something to address this need?”
Walsh said the situation will be revisited when the district consolidates in 2026 because there will probably be a need for only two bus runs. That is the targeted time for the opening of Bethel Park Elementary School for each of the district’s elementary school students at the current site of Neil Armstrong Middle School. Independence Middle School is being reconfigured to house all middle school students.
.