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The Winnipeg School Division won’t be pursuing the idea of later start times for older teens in the near future.

The division began looking at the idea in 2017 after a plethora of evidence that later start times would be beneficial for teens’ health.

“We’ve been looking at the research that adolescents have a change in their circadian rhythm — where they stay up a little later at night and tend to sleep in more in the morning as a natural rhythm for their sleep — and harnessing that to try and maximize their learning potential,” trustee Chris Broughton (Ward 2) told 680 CJOB in January 2019.

READ MORE: Winnipeg School Division looking into later start time for high schoolers

Broughton said the idea would have involved increasing the flexibility in high school students’ schedules and making the early-morning slots on their calendars potentially available as spare periods.

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While the change would have, ideally, shown an impact on academic performance for some students, Broughton admitted implementing it would bring about a number of other necessary changes.

“None of these changes would occur in isolation,” he said.

“Everything from how students get to and from school to teachers’ schedules would be impacted.” Tweet This

Ultimately, it was those impacts that prevented the board from further implementation, said Raedean Carter, spokesperson for the WSD.

A survey the division conducted had 897 responses, said Carter.

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“The majority (55 per cent) support the current start time of 9 a.m. There was a small group (two per cent) that thought start times could be earlier. Overall, 35 per cent thought a later start from 10 minutes to one hour could be considered.”

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However, later start times concerned many families, with some listing a reduction in evening time for homework and family, conflicts with activities after school, conflicts with work schedules and concerns about student jobs as being the top reasons.

The division received the report as information in December and will not be doing anything further with it at the moment, said Carter.

-with files from Sam Thompson