Green Bay high school start times won’t change in the 2026-27 school year despite a July discussion on the issue, the Green Bay School District told its board and student council on Oct. 8.
“While we thought there might be a possibility to work to a later start time, just as the science tells us … we have to do that district-wide,” said David Johns, associate superintendent of continuous improvement.
The information was presented at an Oct. 8 Green Bay intra-city student council meeting, where students from each Green Bay high school met with principals, administrators and the School Board at the district’s main office.
Johns said a schedule change that big would likely impact a broader base of students than just high schoolers and could be expensive, so they need more input from the community than what they can gather before they’d need to implement the plan.
Still, high school students may see a change in their schedules next school year. At the School Board’s Oct. 13 meeting, Johns and his team will present an updated school schedule plan, featuring seven class periods instead of eight.
How could Green Bay high school schedules change?
The Green Bay School District has been considering ways to improve its high schools for over a year and a half, Johns said at a July 14 Green Bay School Board meeting. That includes potential schedule and start time changes, but it may also look like adding personalized programming for students behind on credits or improving the freshman experience. Right now, the only details available are about proposed schedule changes.
Right now, three of the district’s main four high schools — Preble, Southwest and West — have eight 47-minute periods and one 30-minute advisory period in a day. East High School has six 71-minute periods and one 25-minute “home base” period in a day.
Under the proposed plan, all schools would shift to seven periods. Some classes would be 50 minutes long, and students would take them all school year. Other classes would be 100 minutes long, and students would take them for half a school year.
“Blocked” 100-minute classes would most likely be either career or technical education-based or lab-based, at least initially, Johns said. If a class is blocked, it would be blocked at all four main high schools.
Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, which are higher-level courses with a major exam at the end often taken for college credit, would likely not be blocked, Johns said.
There would also be four lunch periods at each school, rather than the current three. This would allow all students to eat lunch at the cafeteria if they want. Right now, the cafeterias at some schools aren’t big enough to allow a third of the student body to eat there at a time.
What about start time changes?
Green Bay started considering start time changes in 2018 to allow students to sleep in more, but the effort stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July, the district proposed reopening the start time discussion, specifically at its secondary schools.
Now, though, that discussion has been put on hold. Johns said at the Oct. 8 intra-city student council meeting that the district would need to have “a community-wide conversation about what time school starts and what time it ends.” He also mentioned the cost considerations of a potential change.
The Press-Gazette reached out to ask about a timeline for potential start time input sessions or ways to send in community feedback but didn’t get a response by the time this article was published.
What comes next for schedule changes?
The Green Bay School Board will consider the full schedule change plan at its meeting at 5 p.m. Oct. 13 at the district’s main office. It’ll decide whether to approve the changes, which would be implemented next school year, at its Oct. 27 meeting.
It’s looking for feedback, particularly from students, on the proposed schedule. Student leaders are planning ways to gather those responses at their schools.
Contact Green Bay education reporter Nadia Scharf at nscharf@gannett.com or on X at @nadiaascharf.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay schools won’t start later in 2026-27. But, here is how schedules may change
Reporting by Nadia Scharf, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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