FAQs

In recent years, much attention has focused on delaying the start of the school day as a way to address chronic sleep loss in adolescents. The biological changes that youth undergo with the onset of puberty lead to a shift in circadian rhythms, pushing the onset of sleepiness later into the evening than either younger children or adults – to about 11:00 p.m. Given the recommendations for adolescents to sleep 8-10 hours per night, a bedtime of 11:00 p.m. should ideally be coupled with a wakeup time of no earlier than 7:00-7:30 a.m. These biological patterns are in conflict with early school start times, leading several organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Medical Association (AMA), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevent (CDC), to recommend that middle and high school start times begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

The current (2023-2024) schedule is:

• High schools begin the student day at 7:30 a.m. and end at 2:40 p.m., which totals 7 hours and 10 minutes.
• Middle schools begin the student day at 8:15 a.m. and end at 3:05 p.m., which totals 6 hours and 50 minutes.
• Elementary schools begin the student day at 9:00 a.m. and end at 3:35 p.m., which totals 6 hours and 35 minutes.

On June 20, 2023, the Lower Merion Board of School Directors approved the bell times below to begin in September 2024:

• Middle School 8:00 a.m. – 2:35 p.m.
• High School 8:30 a.m. – 3:15 p.m.
• Elementary School 9:10 a.m. - 3:45 p.m.

The implementation of this schedule, which decreases the length of the school day for middle schools (15 minutes) and high schools (25 minutes), will necessitate revisions to the current class schedules at both of these levels.

LMSD uses a three-tier transportation system. The same buses are used to complete elementary, middle and high school runs at three different times. So, if fewer than three tiers exist under any new schedule scenario, additional buses would have to be purchased, bus parking located, and – the biggest current challenge -- additional drivers would have to be hired.

One of the main reasons that our high school days are among the longest in the region is because of an innovative program called Lunch and Learn. Lunch and Learn is a 63-minute period during the middle of the day that is used by students to eat lunch, meet with teachers, do homework, work on group projects, etc. Lunch and Learn was adopted in the 2015-2016 academic year, and has become recognized as a model program with over 30 teams of public school officials having visited to observe the program since its inception. For a detailed view of the instructional schedules for LMSD high schools, see Tables 2 and 3 in the document linked here.

Many LMSD staff members do not live in the District and can have lengthy commutes. They also may have children and changing their work hours could affect their childcare arrangements. That is in addition to the above-mentioned effects on staff members who coach or sponsor clubs, or those who may have outside employment.

In December 2023, the Board of School Directors approved an expansion of the high school walk zone from 1 mile to 1.5 mile. This change was approved because, during the planning of transportation schedules, it was observed that many buses would arrive at Lower Merion and Harriton high schools as late as 8:29 AM. This would cause tardiness among high school students and disrupt elementary bus runs.

To ensure timely transportation for high school students, the District considered altering drop-off times for middle schoolers before 8:00 AM, but that would negate the intended benefits of the later start time.

In seeking a solution, several transportation options were assessed:

1. Expanding walking zones for all schools was dismissed due to safety concerns, especially for schools like Black Rock lacking safe walking routes.
2. Extending the walking distance from 1.0 to 2.0 miles for high school students was dismissed because of the considerable increase in walking distance.
3. Extending the walking distance from 1.0 to 1.5 miles for high school students was accepted.

This option will allow the Transportation Department to optimize efficiency.

The Transportation Department is currently assessing the impact on current ridership due to the change in walking areas for high school students. Families should anticipate receiving official communication about transportation changes in January.

The transportation changes will not apply to students who receive specialized transportation per their IEP. Further, if student would need to walk on a route that has been deemed hazardous by PennDOT, transportation will be provided.

LMSD buses more than 9,000 students to about 125 locations across the Delaware Valley each day using a three-tiered system. That means the same buses are used to run three different routes each morning and three different routes at dismissal. Transporting the same number of students if start times are closer together or simultaneous would require more buses, more bus drivers and additional bus parking. Adequate bus parking is already a challenge. Hiring more qualified drivers is costly and challenging in the current job market. Buying and maintaining additional buses is also quite expensive.

• Fleet Details (2019-2020): The fleet currently includes 123 vehicles, including:
  • 84 large buses (72 passenger)
  • 28 medium buses (48 passenger)
  • 2 small buses (30 passenger)
  • 9 accessible vehicles.
• Driver Shortage: Lower Merion School District bus drivers are CDL-certified employees who work a minimum of 5 hours per day, often in split shifts. The District provides a benefits package for drivers, unlike many neighboring school districts, making it an attractive position for CDL drivers interested in school transportation. As of December 2019, the District has 13 driver vacancies. The District began the school year with a shortage of 9 drivers. For more information about the bus driver shortage in this region and across the nation, read “School bus driver shortage squeezes districts around the region (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11.10.2019).
• Parking and Facilities: Secure, township-approved space is needed to park school buses. Additionally, parking space for bus drivers’ personal vehicles is needed. The school district is currently at capacity for parking buses:
  • Current Overnight Parking
    • 74 buses parked at Matsonford Road; at physical capacity
    • 25 buses parked at Harriton High School; at approved capacity
    • 24 buses parked Lower Merion High School; at approved capacity
  • Potential new space: The property adjacent to Welsh Valley Middle school is one possible space for parking 12 additional buses. In November 2019 the Board of School Directors approved a motion for the District to proceed with an approval request with Lower Merion Township. The District intends to file the request in December 2019. They expect the Township to provide their response in early Spring 2020.
  • Other properties explored:
    • For a list of over 45 additional properties the District has explored for bus parking, see slide 35 of the July 21, 2014 Board of School Directors meeting presentation on Bus Parking.
    • For a comprehensive overview (including aerial photographs and diagrams) of the parking limitations at each of the current 10 LMSD schools and other properties explored for bus parking in recent years, review the materials from the July 21, 2014 Board of School Directors meeting.
    • Black Rock Middle School does not have space to accommodate overnight parking.

The most efficient use of the bus fleet requires 45 minutes between each schedule tier. At a minimum, a 40-minute gap between schedules could also work, but increases the chances of bus delay. The dismissal tiers of the current schedule (2:40 p.m., 3:05 p.m., and 3:35 p.m.) are too short to use many of our buses for all three runs, meaning the afternoon schedule is inefficient from a fleet utilization point of view.

Currently, most of our students are on the bus between 20 and 30 minutes per commute. However, some students ride as little as 8 minutes or as long as 50 minutes, depending on how far they live from their school and the volume of traffic during the time they are traveling by bus. Ride time statistics for 2018-2019 academic year are provided in Table 1.

School Starts: HS - 7:30; MS - 8:15; ES - 9:00

School Dismissals: HS - 2:40; MS - 3:05; ES - 3:35

Table 1

School	Avg. AM Ride Times	AM: Range (min, max)	Avg. PM Ride Times	PM: Range (min, max)
Harriton	31	10, 48	28	11, 50
Lower Merion	22	10, 35	25	10, 37
Bala Cynwyd	30	20, 48	30	19, 47
Welsh Valley	26	12, 53	27	10, 51
Belmont Hills	20	8, 32	22	16, 34
Cynwyd	19	9, 23	30	12, 38
Gladwyne	25	10, 39	22	10, 37
Merion	25	20, 38	24	14, 45
Penn Valley	29	18, 37	24	13, 30
Penn Wynne	29	12, 38	29	18, 47

Bus loads vary based on distance travelled and typical ridership. The minimum and maximum bus load size by school are provided in Table 2.

Table 2: 2018-19 Bus Load Minimum/Maximum by School

SCHOOL	MIN.	MAX.
HARRITON	31	72
LOWER MERION	45	75
BALA CYNWYD	26	56
WELSH VALLEY	24	61
BELMONT HILLS	42	60
CYNWYD	54	68
GLADWYNE	24	57
MERION	34	58
PENN VALLEY	39	75
PENN WYNNE	44	66

The walk zones in LMSD are .75 miles for elementary students and 1 mile for secondary students. These are half of the distance the state uses for calculating walk zones, which is 1.5 miles for elementary and 2 miles for secondary students. As of May 28, 2019, there are 1,059 walkers, about 12% of the student body. On a school-by-school basis, the percentage fluctuates due to the designation of roads leading to the school classified as hazardous. For example, Ithan Road is the only path to and from Harriton High School, so there is no walk zone for Harriton because Ithan is classified as hazardous. The number and percentage of the student body that lives in the walk zone at each school are provided in Table 3.

SCHOOL	STUDENTS IN WALK ZONE N (% OF STUDENT BODY)
BELMONT HILLS	97 (20%)
CYNWYD	232 (41%)
GLADWYNE	23 (3%)
MERION	155 (26%
PENN VALLEY	23 (3%)
PENN WYNNE	102 (13.5%)
BALA CYNWYD	221 (20.5%)
WELSH VALLEY	8 (<1%)
HARRITON	0
LOWER MERION	197 (13%)
LMSD	1,059 (12%)

Schools in the Central League typically begin their competitions at 3:45. The later our secondary schools dismiss, the more instructional time our athletes and teacher-coaches will lose in order to arrive at out-of-district competitions in time for adequate warm-up prior to the 3:45 pm start time. The high school teams that would be most affected by early dismissals for 3:45 competitions are soccer, field hockey, JV football, freshman football, cross country, golf, volleyball, squash, tennis, freshman basketball, swimming & diving, lacrosse, baseball, softball, and track & field. Teams that would not be affected by a later dismissal time include cheerleading, varsity football, wrestling, junior varsity and varsity basketball, ice hockey, indoor track and field, crew, and ultimate frisbee. Athletic competitions for middle school students occur almost exclusively in the afternoon, so any change to a later dismissal time would impact middle school athletics.

Our high schools operate on a rotating schedule in the morning and afternoon. The afternoon course sequence is different each day of the four-day schedule, so aligning a physical education course with athletes’ away-game competitions is unlikely to address the issue of lost instructional time for athletes requiring early dismissal. For more details on the rotating schedule in high school, see Tables 2 and 3 in this document.

The following models were also considered:

The Two-Tier Schedule Model

This model promotes a schedule in which elementary and secondary schools (middle and high school) operate on two different schedules rather than three, as they currently do in LMSD. This model is commonly used in PA school districts with smaller student enrollment and where secondary schools are located less than one mile apart, sometimes sharing the same property.

While this option was initially the most appealing to the Advisory Committee and was the best fit with the criteria established, closer examination of the model revealed that the District does not have the capacity to support a fleet size increase of 40%, or 53 buses in addition to the 123 vehicles currently maintained and operated by the District. For each additional bus that is needed, so is a driver and parking space. The District is currently at capacity for bus parking and is thirteen drivers short, up from 9 drivers short at the beginning of the academic year. For a more comprehensive description of transportation system challenges, see below.

The Re-Order

This model repositions the schools within three tiers to any order that would achieve a middle and high school start time as close as possible to 8:30 a.m. or later, as recommended by the medical and health communities. For the purpose of the advisory committee’s consideration, the re-ordered model was:

• Elementary Schools: 7:30-2:05 (6 hours, 35 minutes)
• High School: 8:15-3:25 (7 hours, 10 minutes)
• Middle School: 9:00-3:50 (6 hours, 50 minutes)

When scored against the decision-making criteria, this model scored among the top three in overall score, and when adjustments were made to increase the transportation feasibility and safety of elementary students during civil dawn, it was an even more closely aligned with the decision-making criteria. This adjusted re-order schedule is what was ultimately recommended to the Board of School Directors on October 24, 2019.

• Elementary Schools: 7:45-2:35 (6 hours, 50 minutes)
• High School: 8:25-3:25 (7 hours)
• Middle School: 9:05-4:05 (7 hours)

The Current Schedule

The current schedule was included as an option for consideration by the Advisory Committee. When scored against the decision-making criteria, it scored among the top three models in overall score, although the scores were lower for the criteria considered most important by the committee.

The Push Model

This model takes the existing tier order (high, middle, and elementary) and pushes all schedules further into the day than they are now. That would mean that start times and end times would be moved forward. As an example, a 30-minute push would translate to LMSD schools as follows:

• High Schools: 8:00 a.m. to 3:10 p.m. (7 hours, 10 minutes)
• Middle Schools: 8:45 a.m. to 3:35 p.m. (6 hours, 50 minutes)
• Elementary Schools: 9:30 a.m. to 4:05 p.m. (6 hours, 35 minutes)

The Push Model scored lower than the other models on the decision-making criteria established by the advisory committee members, therefore it was removed from further consideration.

The Flip Model

This model flips the first and last positions in the three tier system, which would swap the start times for high schools (currently first tier) and elementary schools (currently third tier). The Flip works well in school districts where all schools have the same length of the school day or in districts that operate a two tier system, neither of which applies to LMSD. An application of the “The Flip” in LMSD to yield the following schedule:

• Elementary Schools: 7:30-2:05 (6 hours, 35 minutes)
• Middle School: 8:15-3:05 (6 hours, 50 minutes)
• High School: 9:00-4:10 (7 hours, 10 minutes)

The Flip Model scored lower than the other models on the decision-making criteria established by the advisory committee members, therefore it was removed from further consideration.