Teens soon will get more time to sleep in on school days in Fairport as a districtwide shift in start times is on the horizon.
The Fairport Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday to flip the schedule for all schools starting two years from now.
That means high schoolers will start classes later, while younger students will begin earlier. A finalized schedule has not yet been announced.
“There is a lot of compelling research that links sleep disturbance to increased challenges with mental health,” said University of Rochester Medical Center psychologist Emily Cromwell. “What we see is that schools that start earlier, we see those students actually have increased risk for worse mental health.”
Cromwell spoke with the Fairport school board earlier this year during a Q&A discussion panel about the proposal.
“There is a line of research that's been examining how sleep relates to suicidal ideation,” she said. “When we have lower levels of sleep, we see increases in suicidal ideation and behavior.”
Changing the school day schedule to reflect teenagers’ natural sleep rhythm is a matter of students’ mental health, physical health and safety, and cognitive functioning, Cromwell and URMC pediatric sleep specialist Laura Tomaselli said during the discussion.
"The circadian rhythm timing changes during puberty,” Tomaselli said. “The delayed sleep phase in adolescence is felt to be starting about two hours of what it typically is during childhood. And that circadian rhythm also changes, too, because the teenage brain is not as sensitive to some of the other cues — in particular light.”
The argument, based on 30 years of research, is essentially that teenage brains behave differently from younger brains, and sufficient sleep plays a significant role in overall health.
Superintendent Brett Provenzano said the changeup in start times has been years in the making and was a topic of conversation when he took over in 2015.
“It was definitively clear that the research ... supports the need for the shift to occur,” Provenzano said. “We've been doing a number of transportation studies to see if we could do it in a way that's fiscally responsible and doesn't add additional tax impacts to our community. And we are now in a place where we feel like we can make that move.”
Part of the reasoning for the change to happen in the 2026-27 school year is that there is an expected consolidation that would take place then in which ninth grade classes -- which are currently held at Minerva DeLand School — will be re-absorbed into the high school building.
Fairport High School PTSA President Penny Dunn said in a statement that the organization supports the school board’s choice.
“By prioritizing the well-being and academic success of our students, this change reflects our collective commitment to fostering a positive and productive learning environment,” Dunn said.