St. Paul middle and high school students will start their school day one hour later, beginning in fall 2019.

The school board voted 5-2 Tuesday night to start secondary schools at 8:30 a.m. each day, giving adolescents an extra hour to sleep at night.

Half the district’s elementary and K-8 schools would move up an hour, to 7:30, while any school with a 9:30 start would keep it.

The board said exceptions to that schedule could arise as superintendent Joe Gothard develops a new strategic plan for the district.

In district surveys, about half of respondents have objected to a schedule change. Officials said they’ll take the next two years to address concerns about child care, early-morning bus safety and scheduling for athletics.

Speaking for the district’s athletics directors, Highland Park’s Pat Auran said later starts for secondary schools would have “a negative impact on athletics.”

He said teams already are squeezed for after-school practice time because of scheduling conflicts for city-owned facilities. And with a dearth of field lights at district fields, he said, they’d be unable to host games on school nights.

Board chairman Jon Schumacher said later high school starts have been proven to reduce crime, car crashes and unwanted pregnancies.

“I don’t think you can turn away from that evidence and say, well, we have a lot of people that aren’t happy about it,” he said.

Planning administrator Jackie Statum Allen said the new schedule is not expected to boost academic achievement but should bring other benefits.

“It’s more social and mental benefits — feeling less tired, using less caffeine, making better decisions,” she said.

It remains to be seen whether the district will cancel the extra hour built into the school day at Washington Technology Magnet. That move would save $2 million a year, offsetting the increased bus costs associated with the districtwide change in schedules.

CHANGE COULD BE HALTED

The board voted last December to change start times in fall 2018. On Tuesday, they voted to postpone implementation by one more year to align with any strategic changes Gothard wants to make.

“We want to make sure we can stand behind this plan and it’s not changing every year,” Gothard said.

But the stakes felt higher Tuesday than a one-year delay.

Three board members — John Brodrick, Chue Vue and Jeanelle Foster — said during the meeting that they’d vote against a start time change. A fourth, Zuki Ellis, expressed concerns about safety and the prospect of losing young students to charter schools with 8:30 starts.

When she voted for the resolution last December, Ellis said she was unsatisfied with the administration’s three-tier schedule. That schedule barely changed in the last year, but Ellis stuck by her vote.

In an interview after the vote, Ellis said the start-times issue — discussed on and off in the district for decades — is not going away.

“Yes, there are things that still need to get figured out. It was a hard vote,” she said. “I’ve got to have faith and hope in this district.”

Foster said she changed her mind after hearing from board members Schumacher and Steve Marchese. She said the new schedule will be part of Gothard’s strategic plan, so the board is not done voting on the issue.

“We do have another opportunity to stop this,” she said.