Radnor Township School District is committed to promoting and sustaining the safety, academic achievement and mental and physical health of our students. Over the past several years, there has been significant mounting scientific evidence that chronic adolescent sleep loss has become a public health issue.

In testament to these findings, many major prominent national health organizations (see "Resources" below) have issued related official policy statements and recommendations. More recently, the following national organizations have issued the same declarations: the National Parent Teacher Association; the American Academy of Sleep Medicine; and the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

In June 2017, in response to this issue also garnering board and administrative concern and under the direction of Superintendent Mr. Ken Batchelor, the district named the exploration of student sleep needs and school start times as one of its 2017-18 "priority projects,” with a recommendation to be released by administration by the end of the 2017-18 school year. The recommendation will follow an investigation on the topics of student sleep and school start time by a committee comprised of RTSD staff members, parents, students and community members.

Up-to-date information on the progress of the Adolescent Sleep and School Start Time Study and general information on these topics will be shared on this webpage.

For more information, contact Committee Chair Dr. Anthony Rybarczyk, RTSD Director of Elementary Teaching and Learning, at anthony.rybarczyk@rtsd.org.

The RTSD Adolescent Sleep and School Start Time Committee was formed by district administration in response to the results of a district survey completed by approximately 500 community members on the topic. Approximately 100 respondents requested to be considered for membership on the committee. The selected participants are listed on the right under "Study Committee Members."

The three major questions from the survey were:

• What do you think would be beneficial about starting high school later in the morning?
• What are the concerns you have about starting high school later in the morning?
• What general comments, questions, or concerns do you have that you would like the committee to address?

When officially designating adolescent sleep and school start time an area of study for the 2017-18 school year, Radnor Township School District Superintendent Ken Batchelor assigned the following purposes to the Study Committee:

• Understand and educate the community about the identified national public health issue of chronic sleep deprivation in adolescents and the contributing factors and consequences;
• Evaluate the impact on Radnor;
• Present a report and recommendations to the RTSD Administration and Superintendent by the end of the 2017-18 school year

In an effort to capture the thoughts of RTSD constituents regarding Adolescent Sleep/School Start Time, the committee has created an email address to gather community input. Please send comments to sleep@rtsd.org. The committee will consider all comments as part of its ongoing research.