UPDATES ON EDUCATION RESEARCH AND POLICY
NEW POSTS WEEKLY!
We want to help lawmakers, educators, and families make decisions about education by providing updates on national, regional and Missouri-specific research. While we strive to be objective, we want to facilitate discussion and will occasionally offer our own views on this blog.
St. Louis Interested in Moving High School Start Times Later
St. Louis schools have been looking into moving high school start times back. St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) discussed a Healthy Start Times initiative in a work session board meeting in January 2026.
PRiME in the NEWS: Courtney Vahle “We need to rethink school start times in Missouri'“
In the fall of 2024, PRiME’s Director of Operations, Dr. Courtney Vahle (With co-author, Paul Wunnenberg) took a deep dive into high school start times across Missouri. After compiling a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive dataset of Missouri high school start times, containing 295 high schools from 230 school districts across the state, the authors found that the Missouri statewide average start time, 7:48 AM, is a full 42 minutes earlier than the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends.