Bixby schools announce new start times for next school year

BIXBY, Okla. (KTUL) — For a working mom, getting the kids off to school on time and opening the store on time can be tough.

"Even if I drove them, I couldn't get them dropped off until 8:40 or 8:45, and I'm supposed to open my business at 8:00," said Shana Wallace, who owns the store Nourishment and also cares for her four kids.

For her, the schedule has been pretty tough already, so she's a bit apprehensive when she hears about changes.

"I just... I don't know. I don't know how it will all work out. I'm just a little leery about how it will all work out," she said.

Starting next school year, elementary and intermediate schools will all start at 8:00 and end at 3:05; early release on Fridays will be 2:05. Middle, ninth grade, and high school students will start at 8:45, end at 3:46, and have an early release on Fridays at 2:50.

The school says these changes were made to take advantage of younger children's higher attention span early in the day and accommodate teenager's later sleep schedules.

"Well, I don't necessarily believe early or late waking up will actually affect your learning abilities," said Dr. Nidhi Koul with Bixby Pediatrics.

Dr. Koul says children do need their sleep, but parents should be addressing that by making sure their kids, young and old, go to bed on time. One suggestion is to maybe ease back on some of the after school activities to make sure they get some down time. She says moving the start time won't do much for the kids.

"It's probably putting a Band-Aid on it. It wouldn't hurt, but I don't know if that's going to be the real solution. I want to emphasize on the amount of hours of sleep are important," she said.

She recommends ten to ten and a half hours of sleep for the younger kids and nine to nine and a half for teenagers for them to reach their full potential.

The school district says one definite improvement will be in their bus scheduling. With the new start times, buses will be more efficient, crossing the bottlenecked bridge across the Arkansas only once each morning, as opposed to the several times they do now.