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Start School Later Baltimore City

Our Goal: Safe and healthy school start times for all Baltimore City Public Schools.

September 19, 2024: Abell Foundation releases its report:  Later School Start Times for Adolescents in Baltimore City Public Schools: Opportunities and Recommendations
September 27, 2024: Baltimore Sun's Editorial Board says ​"Baltimore City students need later start times"
October 18-19, 2024: Loyola University Maryland hosted the 2024 National Conference on Adolescent Sleep and School Start Times: Science and Implementation

Baltimore City's adolescents are sleep deprived.
The 2014 and 2018 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, administered by the Maryland Department of Health on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control asked a question of Middle and High School students about number of hours slept during weeknights.  Data is broken down for each county and Baltimore City, by age, grade, gender, and race. 
​Please see the adjacent slideshow.

WMAR2 reports on connection between
​school start time and attendance on March 18, 2025

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Baltimore City School Start Times and Transportation in the News

• May 2025: A series of articles and editorials by the Baltimore Banner on May 6 (budget), May 9 (lack of data on student ridership) and May 11 (editorial) highlight the issues of student transportation in Baltimore City.  Th Baltimore Banner hosted an in-person town-hall on May 12, with 100 attendees recommending five suggestions. 
• March 18, 2025:  WMAR2 reports on school start times and chronic absenteeism.
• March 6. 2025: The City Council held a hearing on transportation and school attendance with BCPS and MTA, as a direct result of the Baltimore Banner's report.  The City Council subcommittee approved a bill to require the school system to conduct a study to identify root causes of chronic absenteeism, and strategies to address them, as reported by WMAR2.
• February 26, 2025:  The Baltimore Banner hosts a Q&A webinar with the reporters about MTA transportation Routes.  Reporter Liz Bowie recommends "fiddling with start times" at 15:15 (but the whole video is worth the watch).
• February 18, 2025:  The Baltimore Banner publishes an extensive report on use of MTA for student transportation, including an analysis of MTA transportation routes and an analysis of on-time performance for MTA transportation routes students are likely to use.  One of the reporters was interviewed.  In the main article Maryland State Department of Education is quoted as saying "In a statement, the department suggested that students pick high schools closer to home and the city start school later."
• February 5, 2025: The Baltimore Banner reports on a rally about Baltimore City transportation in Annapolis, that includes reference of transportation impacts to school attendance.
• January 29, 2025:  The Baltimore Sun publishes a guest editorial by a Loyola University Maryland student.  
• December 14, 2024: The Baltimore Sun includes school start times, transportation, Abell Report, and legislation in an article about chronic absenteeism.
• November 26, 2024: Maryland Matters publishes an opinion article about the Abell Foundation report and upcoming state-wide legislation.
• September 30, 2024: Baltimore Fishbowl interviews lead author Dr. Amy Wolfson about the Abell Foundation Report. Baltimore Sun publishes its article on the report as well.  
• September 27, 2024: Baltimore Sun's Editorial Board says
  ​"Baltimore City students need later start times".
• September 19, 2024: Abell Foundation releases its report:
   Later School Start Times for Adolescents in Baltimore City Public Schools: Opportunities and Recommendations
  February 23, 2024: The Baltimore Banner publishes an opinion article by two former Baltimore City students (now at Loyola University).
• March 4, 2023:  The Baltimore Sun publishes a story about 25 new electric school buses that will be used beginning in the 2023-2024 school year.
• February 27, 2023:  The Baltimore Banner and WYPR discuss "Why don’t Baltimore City Schools have school buses?"  The podcast references a 2021 report "Not in Service: Why Public Transit Must Aim To Serve Students" by the Fund for Educational Excellence.
• October 26, 2022 : The student author of the two letters to the Baltimore Sun in June and September, is recognized in the Start School Later Student Hall of Fame for the 2022-2023 school year.  
• September 29, 2022: A student letter to the editor is published in the Baltimore Sun about Baltimore City's new school hours.
• July 22, 2022:  WYPR discusses new bell times for Baltimore City Public schools.   
• June 16, 23, and 24, 2022:  Letters to the editor and a guest editorial, are published in the Baltimore Sun about Baltimore City's new school hours and transportation (read here and here and here).  
• June 13, 2022: The Parent and Community Advisory Board for Baltimore City released a statement and organized a public virtual meeting with BCPS to discuss bell times on June 16th.  
• June 8, 2022:  Baltimore City Public Schools announces that over 90 schools will shift school start times.  Many middle and high schools shift to earlier start times (as early as 7:30 a.m.).  Start School Later wrote to the Baltimore City Superintendent and Board of Education on June 9th.
• 2018: Following the Novemer 1, 2016 school bus crash with a Maryland Transporation Authority bus and private vehicle that killed six people, MSDE hired a consultant to review Baltimore CIty's school transportation , upon recommendation of the intermim National Transportation Safety Board report.  This is the January 31, 2018 School Bus Consultant's report to MSDE.  The NTSB report was finalized May 22, 2018.
• ​January 2017:  The Baltimore Education Research Consortium published a report Getting to High School in Baltimore: Student Commuting and Public Transportation. The report examines the relationship between student commutes using public transportation and on-time arrival and absenteeism.  The report references a February 2015 WYPR report on student commutes.  
• January 6, 2015:  In Fiscal Year 2012-2013, Baltimore City Public Schools spent $5 million on taxis to transport students, according to an article on BaltimoreBrew about a HackBaltimore effort to develop other transportation solutions.  ​

New Lens Production created this 2013 video about high school transportation, as part of a Student Attendance Work Group.