Committee Charge
The Littleton Public Schools Long-Range Planning Committee will operate under the following charge:
“To review the district physical plant, program capacity, enrollment boundaries, transportation routing, and major capital equipment requirements, and determine what improvements to efficiency, sustainability, and infrastructure needs may be required during the next five to ten years.”
Members
The committee is comprised of 16 voting members representing the following interest groups:
Background
In the spring of 2017, LPS began to explore how to streamline school start and end times to better meet the needs of teenagers and to pave the way for improved and more efficient transportation services in the future. Research tells us that a later school start time positively impacts alertness, mental health, wellness and behavior in high school and middle school students, which means students are better prepared to learn.
Community conversations about the possibility of changing school start times began last spring through 22 staff and 30 parent/community meetings throughout the school district. In addition, nearly 6,000 parents, staff and secondary students participated in a survey about potential changes to school start times. The LPS Board of Education asked the Long-Range Planning Committee to further study the issue and provide the Board with recommendations in November 2017.
Boundary Study
The committee has been meeting since the fall of 2018 to study school boundaries to better balance enrollment, provide boundaries for the new elementary schools to be built for the Ames neighborhood and the combined Highland and Franklin neighborhoods, and to address the growing transportation challenges resulting from increased traffic in the south metro area -- all in an effort to improve boundaries to best serve students and provide them with the best educational experience possible.
During more than 20 hours of meetings, the LRPC has considered 14 different elementary school boundary scenarios, six different middle school boundary scenarios, and four different high school boundary scenarios. As part of this process, the LRPC:
Four stakeholder open houses were scheduled in January and February 2020, where attendees could drop in any time during a two-hour open house to learn about each scenario, ask questions of LRPC members, give feedback and take an exit survey, which provided another opportunity for feedback.
All four open houses provided attendees with the same opportunities to interact with members of the Long-Range Planning Committee, learn about the boundary options, ask questions, and provide feedback. All returned surveys were tabulated verbatim in a spreadsheet for LRPC members to review as they draft their final recommendations to the Board of Education, to be presented later this spring. Additionally, feedback received via emails, phone calls, and letters was also recorded for the committee's review.
What’s next?
The LRPC will provide an update to the Board of Education later this spring. The Board is tentatively scheduled to make decisions about the boundaries by the fall of 2020, and approved new boundaries would likely take effect in the fall of 2021.
Additional information about the Districtwide Boundary Study is available on the LPS district website at Boundary Study.
Summary of February 2017 Start Time Survey Results
In February 2017, nearly 6,000 parents, staff members and middle/high school students participated in a survey about potential changes to school start times. The survey asked participants to react to one specific option.
Parents and staff members who participated in the survey indicated:
Summary of October 2017 Start Time Survey Results
In October 2017, LPS employees and parents were invited to participate in another survey regarding possible changes to school start times. 6,305 parents and employees responded. It was a self-selected survey with a response rate of 36%. Participants were asked to indicate preferences of a possible change to school start times among three choices: Option 1, Option 2, and No Change (see the chart below.) Participants were asked their first choice and their second choice.
Survey results indicate:
October 2017 survey results were presented to the Long-Range Planning Committee in early November, 2017. View the presentation.
Recommending a Bond Election
The Long-Range Planning Committee recommended in August 2018 that the Board of Education put a bond question on the November 2018 ballot. View the committee's report to the Board.
Meetings are held from 4:30–6:30 p.m. Virtually.
January 12, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
January 26, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
February 9, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
February 23, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
March 9, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
March 30, 2021 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
Meetings are held from 4:30–6:30 p.m. at the Education Services Center.
Aug. 19, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
Sept. 30, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
Oct. 28, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
Nov. 11, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
Dec. 9, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
Jan. 13, 2020 | Agenda / Minutes |
Feb. 24, 2020 | Agenda / Minutes |
Mar. 9, 2020 | Agenda / Minutes |
Mar. 30, 2020 | CANCELLED |
Apr. 10, 2020 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
Apr. 16, 2020 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
Apr. 30, 2020 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
May 18, 2020 | ONLINE MEETING Agenda / Minutes |
July 16, 2018 | Site Visits |
July 30, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
October 22, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
November 12, 2018 | Social Event |
January 28, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
February 4, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
March 4, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
April 2, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
April 22, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
May 6, 2019 | Agenda / Minutes |
April 5, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
May 17, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
June 7, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
June 14, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
August 14, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
September 11, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
September 18, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
October 2, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
October 16, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
November 6, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
December 18, 2017 | Agenda / Minutes |
January 22, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
February 5, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
February 26, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
March 5, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
March 19, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
April 2, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
April 16, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
May 1, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
May 7, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
May 21, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
June 4, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
June 18, 2018 | Agenda / Minutes |
Spring 2017
June 2017
August 2017
September 2017
October 2017
November 2017
“Advances in understanding sleep and circadian regulation, and the negative consequences of missing two to three hours of sleep a day to meet the demands of education time, give us a new understanding of adolescent behavior. We now know it is their biological clocks, not laziness, that keeps them in bed in the morning and up late at night. Fortunately, the problems of short sleep duration and sleep deprivation caused by education time is one that can be solved by synchronizing adolescent education time to adolescent biology.”
Paul Kelley
"Synchronizing education to adolescent biology: ‘let teens sleep, start school later’"
Learning, Media and Technology, Volume 40, 2015 - Issue 2: Neuroscience and Education
“While long seen as a cultural and psychosocial preference, later bedtimes among adolescents are now understood to be a biological response to puberty, the onset of which results in a two-hour sleep-wake phase delay without lessening total sleep requirements. Therefore, adolescents have a biological need to be able to sleep later in the morning.”
"School Start Times: Review of Recent Literature"
Hanover Research