Principal Mike Egan proposed to the school board a plan to start class forty minutes later every Monday. He proposed his plan on March 2, and the board is expected to vote on it on March 23.



The proposal calls a teacher planning and discussion period that starts at 7:55 am, when first hour would ordinarily begin. Teachers will meet to discuss curriculum, teaching procedures or best practices. School does not start for students until 8:40 am.

Teachers feel that the weekly meetings will have a very positive effect on students, and most are supportive of the late arrivals idea.

“I think it’s an excellent idea for teachers to use time within the school day to meet, discuss, share curriculum and teaching strategies,” said Melody Wilson, social studies teacher. “I don’t see it as a hindrance to education missing a couple minutes [of class]. If anything, I think it will strengthen ties between faculty, students, and teachers.”

Katy Hauck, French teacher, also believes the proposal will benefit the school.

“I think it’s a good idea. I think late arrivals is important; teachers during the school day don’t really have time to work together and I think this is a great solution to that problem,” said Hauck.

The proposal has been warmly received by most students as well. Billy Nixon, senior, and Blaine Curcio, junior, are among those who support it.

“I believe that the late arrivals would not only help [students] get more sleep, but people would be more alert in class and actually pay attention,” said Nixon.

“I’m a fan of late arrivals because sleep is always a good thing,” said Curcio.

Teachers will use their before-school meetings to converse with their course teams (i. e. Honors English III) or, at times, their entire department. They will work on curriculum assessment and the minutes of the meeting will be provided for teachers who could not attend the meeting.

“As a professional learning community, we need to provide teachers time to have a professional dialogue, evaluate and write curriculum, invest and share the best educational practices,” said Egan.

Once the plan is put into place, first period will start at 8:40 am. Every class will be five minutes shorter than usual. The bus schedule will not change, so bus-riding students will arrive to school about an hour early. The snack bar will be open before school, as will the library. Even with the shorter Mondays, there will be no change in the number of days in the school year.

Stevenson has already adopted this method and Egan said it is working well for them. Egan said the only possible inconvenience for LZHS involves the bus schedule.

District 95 shares buses among all of its schools. If the high school changed the pick up times, it would cause a ripple effect through all eight other schools. LZHS must therefore maintain the same bus schedule.

“There are other schools that have late starts or early releases. The reason we are doing it this particular way because of the busses. We have to work around the bus schedule because of the elementary and middle schools,” said Egan.

If the Board passes the proposal, the late arrivals should take effect after spring break.