The Safety Patrol was on the scene at a morning drop-off at Mills Lawn Elementary earlier this school year. (Photo courtesy of Yellow Springs Schools)
School board considers new times for school day
- Published: January 21, 2026
The YS Board of Education held its first meeting of the year Thursday, Jan. 8, during which three new board members — Paul Herzog, Kristi Nowack Myers and Kim Reichelderfer — were sworn in.
With the new board members came the election of new board leadership, with Amy Bailey appointed as president and Nowack Myers as vice president. The school board also elected a new day and time for its regular meetings moving forward: regular meetings will now be held on the second Wednesday of each month, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Having settled this first-of-the-year business, Superintendent Terri Holden later opened discussion about another proposed timing change: a later start for Mills Lawn students and an earlier one for YS Middle and High School students beginning next school year.
The proposal, researched and compiled by Assistant Superintendent Megan Winston, laid out the district’s preliminary case for start time changes beginning in the 2026–27 school year, when the facilities project is slated to be completed. Next school year, the Mills Lawn campus will host students in kindergarten–fourth grade, while students in grades 5–12 will attend YS Middle and High School.
The proposed new timing schedule would shift Mills Lawn students, who currently attend school from 8 a.m.–2:30 p.m., 15 minutes later, establishing a schedule of 8:15 a.m.–2:45 p.m. According to the proposal from Winston and Holden, shifting the day will allow Mills Lawn teachers more time to arrive ahead of students.
“The current issue at Mills Lawn is that in the morning, students arrive [at the same time as] teachers,” Holden said. “If you’re a teacher, it’s really hard to get in your room at the same time students are there. This would help us with supervision.”
At the middle and high schools, Holden cited a need for an earlier end to the day for students: Because students and teachers dismiss at the same time, there’s often not adequate time, she said, for “collaboration, planning and student support.” For that reason, district leaders aim to shift the middle and high school day from 8:30 a.m.–-3:30 p.m. to 8 a.m.-–3 p.m.
Nestling the Mills Lawn school day within that of the middle and high schools, according to the proposal, would also help align staff schedules during each school day: with fifth and sixth graders moving to the East Enon Road campus, several Mills Lawn employees — including music, art, physical education and counseling staff — will need to travel between campuses to engage with the middle school’s youngest students.
Holden also cited middle and high school athletics as a reason for the proposed time change. Because middle and high schools in neighboring school districts in Greene County all begin their days between 7:20 a.m. and 8 a.m., YS Middle and High School athletes are sometimes excused early from class so that they can compete in away games. According to the proposal, there have been 23 early dismissals for middle and high school athletes this school year.
The proposal also noted that changing start and end times at both campuses could enable the district to consolidate its student bus routes, with students from both campuses riding together.
“We know that we have had driver shortage issues, like every other district around for a couple of years,” Holden said. “This will help reduce our bus mileage, allow us to run fewer routes and allow us to use the few drivers that we have more efficiently.”
Over the last three decades, start and end times at Yellow Springs Schools have changed a number of times. One of the most significant changes was made in the fall of 2006, when the district lengthened the school day for Mills Lawn students, shifting from 8:30 a.m.–2:45 p.m. to 8:10 a.m.–2:50 p.m. The same year, middle and high schoolers moved to a later start, with the middle schoolers shifting from an 8:05 a.m. start to an 8:50 a.m. start, and high schoolers from an 8:15 a.m. start to an 8:55 a.m. start, with all students at East Enon Road dismissed at 3:25 p.m. The current schedule for both campuses was adopted in fall 2020.
The 2006 timing change, as reported in the News that year, was two-fold: Then-principal of Mills Lawn, Christine Hatton, cited a need for more instructional time in “not only the core subject area but also in the ‘specialist’ classes, including music and art.” For the middle and high schools, then-Principal John Gudgel cited studies showing that adolescents often naturally fall asleep later and wake up later, and perform better academically with more rest; he also noted that the top “discipline problem” at the time was tardiness, which he said was often the “direct result of students oversleeping.”
Holden pointed to the 2006 change, particularly at the middle and high schools, when presenting the proposal.
“I know prior to my arrival, the district did a lot of study about what’s best for start times for adolescents, for their development, for their sleep patterns,” she said. “We are aware of what the research says, so we’re not asking to start at 7:20 or 7:45. We’re asking to split the difference.”
Holden also said that some district parents may have concerns about younger and older students riding the bus together; to that end, she pointed out that there had been 11 reported behavioral incidents on district busses since August 2024, with 73% of those incidents involving students in grades K–6 and 27% involving students in grades 7–12.
“We want to have a discussion that is data-based, where we acknowledge that sometimes it’s scary, but we can also acknowledge that it may not be as we perceive,” she said. “There’s a false narrative that older students are bad. … We think our older students can model appropriate behavior.”
Winston added that the district aims to respond to questions and concerns from parents about the proposed plan, and asked that folks reach out to district leadership via email at communications@ysschools.org.
“Respectfully, I ask the community to use the email address and ask questions through that [email address] versus going to social media, where that can fuel emotions and we don’t have the capacity to reply and to address those concerns,” she said.
A board work session, set for Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m., will focus on discussing the proposed school start and end time change and bussing plan. The school board noted that there will be time for public comment during the work session.
In other school district news:
• As was decided at the December regular meeting, the school board appointed two of its members — Nowack Myers and Rebecca Potter — to serve as legislative liaisons to the board, keeping an eye on state and federal legislation that might affect YS Schools.
• Mills Lawn Principal Becca Huber welcomed new music teacher Colleen Green to the district. Green has 16 years of experience behind her, having spent seven years teaching elementary school music and five teaching middle school choir and general music, both in Indiana. For the last four years, Green has been a mental wellness behavior consultant for the Montgomery County Educational Service Center.
“I feel incredibly privileged and grateful to have been invited to join such a warm and welcoming and arts-focused community,” Green said during the meeting. “I’m so excited to get back into the music classroom.”
• Mills Lawn Student Council representatives London Sylvester, Clover Stephens and Dahlia Espinosa gave a brief presentation on leading a recent food drive effort at the school. Over the month of December, students donated 1,497 food items, which were collected by the Student Council and delivered to the YS Food Pantry at Central Chapel AME Church. A concurrent food drive at the middle and high schools collected more than 800 food items.
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