To the editor:

Our school committee works diligently to make evidence-based choices for our kids, and wise decisions regarding the use of our tax dollars. Our schools perform well because we have the courage to make changes and investments that keep us on par with our high-performing peers.

Continually targeting the proposed school transportation budget as the source of all rising property tax woes is entirely misleading. 

This amount, spread out among the roughly 6,000 taxpaying households in Barrington, amounts to just a few dollars per month. It equals the cost of the caffeinated drinks, energy drinks, and junk food many Barrington teens consume due to sleep deprivation. It also has the potential to be cancelled out by the 30 percent car tax reduction recently proposed by Governor Raimondo starting in 2018. Remember, too, there will be some tax relief when the Barrington High School bond obligations are completed soon. 

For our schools to remain static in a changing educational environment due to perceived, potential costs is short-sighted and will cost us all in the end. The school budget costs proposed this year are in line with other recent additions to the budget that allowed for other competitive changes: all-day kindergarten and 1:1 technology. If you weren't acutely aware of your higher property tax bill since those costs were added, you won't be with this one, either.

In just the last six weeks, schools in Winchester, Sudbury, Concord-Carlisle, and Mashpee, Mass.; Kittery, Rockland and South Portland, Maine, Portsmouth, NH and Ridgefield, Conn. have voted in favor of later school start times despite costs and logistical challenges. Many regional schools have already changed to later times or are in the midst of implementation as we are. Hanover, Mass. (a town similar to ours in demographics) reported a 22 percent decrease in tardies, a 32 percent decrease in Ds and Fs in period 1 classes, and a 10 percent increase in As in period 1 classes this school year, their first with a 30 minute later start time. 

To remain a modern, progressive and competitive school in this region, we must match our peers going forward. Rhode Island consistently lags behind both Massachusetts and Connecticut schools, and the gap stands to widen if we continue to believe that what has worked in the past will work going forward.

Improved busing and later start times allow children to sleep at a more biologically appropriate time. Studies show teens who get more sleep have a greater ability to resist substance abuse, depression, and athletic injury, all of which carry great financial costs.  

While the main goal of changing start times is the health and wellness benefits of more sleep, the potential to perform better academically or athletically can lead to bigger scholarships, better colleges, plumb jobs and higher earnings.  

A Brookings Institute study from 2011 conservatively estimates that the benefits to cost ratio is 9 to 1 for later school start times. If you cold invest $1,000 in the stock market and get back $9,000 why wouldn't you?

Kristyn Whitney

Barrington