The Association Between Elementary School Start Time and Students’ Academic Achievement in Wayzata Public Schools

Abstract

CAREI conducted two analyses with the purpose of examining the association between elementary school start time and students’ academic achievement in mathematics and reading in Wayzata Public Schools. The first analysis examined the association between elementary school start time and students’ academic achievement in elementary school. The second analysis examined the association between elementary school start time and students’ academic achievement in middle school. The results suggest that the association between school start time and elementary students’ academic achievement is small to non-existent, particularly when controlling for student demographic characteristics, grade, and school. Non-statistically significant interactions indicated that the small effect of school start time was the same for all student subgroups examined. Similarly, the results suggest that there is no association between elementary school start time and middle school students’ academic achievement.