COEUR d’ALENE — The Coeur d’Alene School Board of Trustees on Monday unanimously moved to accept a resolution to further examine later secondary school start times.

The resolution, presented by Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Steve Cook, will require an ad hoc committee on secondary start times comprised of members who represent elementary, middle and high schools; an administrative committee to work on the common schedules and graduation requirements for Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools with considerations of Venture High School; and will include plans for implementation for the 2020-2021 school year and beyond.

The resolution is the result of administrative officials looking into the many aspects of impact if the decision is made to start school days later.

The resolution reads: “Changing secondary start times create issues that impact many and have implications that must be considered, including, but not limited to: the impact on local community workforce, young students at early bus stops, after-school care for K-5 students due to earlier K-5 release, impact on extracurricular activities, transportation, SchoolPlus, KinderPlus and Nutrition Services, potential loss of instructional time for students participating in athletics and impact on work schedules for parents and students.”

“There’s compelling evidence for a lot of things, and it’s about all students,” Cook said. “The research is pretty solid that a student could benefit from it, but equally important is that potentially we could have 5,000 to 6,000 K-5 students out of school at 2:30 in the afternoon if we change nothing but just flip the schedule, so where do those kids go?”

Trustee Tom Hearn expressed the need to have the community completely on board.

“This is not an easy process. You’re talking about a major change affecting multiple systems,” he said.

Trustee Jennifer Brumley shared a need for a deadline for the research to be presented to the board with adequate time before any changes are implemented.

Chair Casey Morrisroe proposed the report to be presented six months ahead of the 2020-2021 school year to provide for flexibility upon the research findings.

“This could be tiered,” he said. “Maybe some things may happen for 2021 and some things might not happen until 2021-2022.”