The students of the Weatherly Area Middle School will have to set a new time on their alarms clocks for school beginning next year.

Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades will now be starting school at 7:35 a.m. and ending the school day at 2:15 p.m.

The time change will not take place until the 2018-2019 school year.

The board voted Wednesday to change the middle school start time to match the high school start time and dismissal.

Superintendent Teresa Young said, “This change will allow for more flexibility in scheduling in the future since most of our middle school teachers are secondary certified. We have numerous students who leave early for extracurricular activities so the change in time will benefit those students by not having to miss as much instructional time.”

Another issue that could arise regarding the time change would whether students will ride the same bus.”

Young said they would. Grades 6-12 will be on the same buses and pre-kindergarten through grade 5 will ride on the same bus for the elementary start time.