Dearborn — Last week the Dearborn Public School Board of Education passed a new schedule that will give high school students from the schools of Fordson, Dearborn High and Edsel Ford an option of starting and ending the school day one hour later. The decision has received both positive and negative reactions, but Dearborn Public School officials stress that it’s an attempt to widen options for parents. 

The practice will begin during the 2012-2013 school year, where the students will be able to start classes at 8:25 a.m. and end the day at 3:20 p.m. The current start time of 7:20 a.m. and end time of 2:15 p.m. will also proceed as usual, giving high school students the option to choose the schedule that suits them best. Students will be expected to chose one schedule and stick to it for the entire year. 

“We started off with the idea that research has shown that adolescence need more sleep,” said Gail Shenkman, the assistant superintendent of secondary education at Dearborn Schools. “This is an option to meet the needs of these kids. It’s the right thing to do for the sleeping patterns of the adolescence.”

Those parents and children that decide to partake in the new schedule option will also need to take into consideration that school bus schedules will not change to accommodate the new time. This means that the student will either need to drive to and from school or have their parents drop and pick them up if they decide to participate with the later times. This is apparently a problem for some parents.

“I think this is a horrible idea,” said Nadia Bazzi, who has six children, two that attend Fordson and two that attend Woodworth middle school. “You should see how chaotic the traffic is at the end of the school day. I’m worried that having varied times is going to be a danger to the elementary and middle school students.”

Bazzi notes that Fordson High School is really close in distance to other schools, including Woodworth. She says if some high school students end up getting out at the same time as the middle school and elementary students, it could cause problems for those who walk home.

“High school students are careless when they are driving home. I’ve made reports to Dearborn Police on numerous occasions,” Bazzi stated. “Every day when I pick up my middle schoolers, I see kids running across Ford Road,” she added. “This might be easier for the parents, but it’s dangerous for the kids. I am completely against this.”

While there had been talks of switching the High School schedule with the Middle School schedule (which starts at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 2:55 p.m.), it ended up presenting a problem to many of the parents who felt the high school students needed to be home first because of responsibilities such as work or taking care of younger siblings. That is the reason why sticking with the two different options felt the most suitable, according to Shenkman.

“Remember this is just optional,” Shenkman stressed. “We already have more duel enrollment students than anybody in the state. Kids are coming and going at all times during the day.”

Currently at the three high schools, there are around 900 students who participate in duel enrollment. Some of them spend half of the day at the high school and the remainder of the day at the Michael Berry Career Center or taking college courses. All of these students depend on their own forms of transportation as well. 

“We already deal with that situation and what they need to do to be safe,” said David Mustonen, the communications coordinator of Dearborn Public Schools. “The school district will do as much as we can to maintain the safety of our students. However, students have to be responsible for themselves as well. It won’t be any different if they are driving to school an hour later.”

Mustonen also notes that the school board did extensive research before proposing the idea and the results were extremely positive.

“We looked into other districts around the country that had similar scheduling and we found that traffic accidents actually decreased,” Mustonen added. “Starting school at a later time makes the student more wide awake and alert.”

According to Mustonen, the scheduling variety should just be looked at as a trail run. If negative aspects come with it in the future, then the school board is willing to go back to normal scheduling routines.

“Nothing is set in stone, but this is the perfect opportunity for us to open our doors and provide options for students and parents,” he added.

If parents are interested in having their children scheduled for the later start/finish times, here are the requirements: The student needs to be in 10th-12th grade, must commit to the schedule for the entire school year, must not have failed any classes previously and must refrain from being involved in after school activities that begin before 3:20 p.m.

Parents that are interested in the new schedule are expected to fill out and sign a mandatory form that has been mailed to the homes of all students. The finalization of the schedule, including the process of selecting teachers and students who are interested, is expected to be ready by August.