New school hours for Newark students mean longer day, extended lunch for teachers

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Newark Public Schools students will have longer days this year under a new universal schedule that guarantees a lunch break and transition time for teachers.

All district students are expected to arrive at school at 8:15 a.m. and will be dismissed at 3:05 p.m., according to the new schedule posted on the district’s website. Last year, the school day ran from 8:25 a.m. to 2:55 p.m. for elementary school students and from 8:15 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. for high school students.

Students will spend six hours and 50 minutes in school under the new schedule change – 20 minutes more than last year for elementary school students and 25 minutes more for high school students. The new hours allow all teachers a 45-minute lunch break but extend their work day to seven hours as they are required to arrive no later than five minutes before students.

The new universal schedule allows for more instruction time, an extra 30 hours of tutoring for elementary students during the school day per year, and a lunch period equal to that of a class period, Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, said in an email to Chalkbeat Newark on Friday.

The district announced the new schedule on its website and in pop-up messages with the new hours on the homepages of schools online. Some parents said Friday they weren’t aware of the changes as they gear up for their students to return to school in roughly three weeks on Sept. 3.

The changes are part of a new agreement between the district and the teachers union to guarantee all teachers a 45-minute lunch break. During this year’s contract negotiations, the union said some teachers would skip lunch or squeeze in a snack in between classes.

Under the new schedule and contract, the workday for high school and elementary teachers will begin at 8:10 a.m. and end at 3:10 p.m. starting this upcoming school year. Paraprofessionals, including teacher aides, parent liaisons, and educational interpreters, will work the same seven-hour day as teachers, Brubaker added.

Across the country, instructional time for K-12 public schools runs an average of seven hours a day and 180 days a year, but the length and time of the school day varies by state, according to the Pew Research Center. A 2017 study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that middle and high school start times should be 8:30 a.m. or later to support student mental health and reduce the risk of depression and anxiety.

In 2017, the state’s Department of Education gathered a group of district administrators to participate in a study group on later school start times . The group surveyed district administrators across New Jersey and found that delaying start times could pose challenges for all grade levels including issues with student transportation, after-school activities, and child care.

The New Jersey School Board Association says start times “should be determined by local school boards in response to local needs, conditions, and community input,” wrote Janet Bamford, NJSBA spokesperson in an email to Chalkbeat Newark on Friday.

The new schedule in Newark could also pose a problem for working parents or those with multiple children in different schools, said Gregory Good, president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Sir Isaac Newton Elementary school. Good, the father of a public school student and two middle school charter students, said he wasn’t aware of the new schedule until contacted by Chalkbeat. The new hours will affect which of his children get dropped off at school first and he foresees more traffic issues than normal on the first day of school.

“Everybody from all over the neighborhoods are trying to get to different schools across the city and then go back home, and it’s just, like, it creates a transportation nightmare with schools and drop-offs,” Good said. “And charter school parents are literally driving from all over the city.”

The district does not expect an increase in traffic across city neighborhoods or a higher number of students arriving late as a result of the schedule change, wrote Brubaker on Friday. There are no new buses or routes planned for the 2024-25 school year, Brubaker added.

For some teachers, the new hours and extended workday are a welcome trade-off for a break during the school day. Joicki Floyd, a former English teacher at Peshine Avenue Elementary school, said she would sometimes work a full day at Peshine without a break and often would rely on snacks and fruits to get her through the day. When she would have time for lunch, it was sometimes cut short.

“My 30-minute lunch would never be 30 minutes, because we would always have to cover for another teacher, or if we took our children to the next teacher and that teacher wasn’t there, then we would have to give up our lunch,” said Floyd, an executive board member for the union who now teaches at Malcolm X Shabazz High School.

Longer lunch periods were “one of the most requested items we got in the contract meetings that we held prior to negotiations,” said John Abeigon, the union president, in June when the contract between the district and the union was approved . He noted that the increased time would be used for extended lunch and more transition time between periods.

The union’s new contract came after nearly five months of negotiations. There were 582 votes against it and 1,331 votes in favor, with just under 30% of the union’s 7,000 members participating in the vote.

Last year, state lawmakers introduced a bill that would have required New Jersey’s public high schools to start classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m. but the proposal failed to pass through the Senate Education Committee. Bill sponsors Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) and Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth) cited the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s recommendations in their bill as a reason for later start times.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org .