The state has found that a Greater Boston high school is short on learning time, forcing district officials to adopt a new schedule that delivers the required instructional hours.

Brookline High School is about 56 hours short of the state-mandated 990 mark for structured learning time, according to a recent state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education investigation.

While the shortfall won’t impact students the remainder of this year, district officials say they are under the gun to create a new schedule for 2025-26 by a July 11 deadline. Parents are pushing for a later ending time rather than an earlier start.

District leaders learned about the state’s findings last Monday, with Superintendent Linus Guillory addressing the issue at a School Committee meeting last Thursday. High School Headmaster Anthony Meyer wrote a letter to students and families on Sunday.

“Our new schedule will likely require new start and end times for the school day as well as other changes to help us meet the state mandates,” Meyer stated. “This means we are working hard – and fast – on a new, pilot weekly schedule for the 2025-26 school year that meets state time on learning requirements.

The state found that the school’s “Days of” and advisory programs count toward the 990-hour structured learning time requirement. The student newspaper, The Cypress, reported that the “Days of” programming consists of four days of schoolwide discussion centered around “racial reform and solidarity,” “change,” “dialogue,” and “disability education.”

The state, however, ruled that two blocks – X (shortened windows usually reserved for school assemblies and study time) and Z (electives not part of the general curriculum) – are not included as structured learning time.

District officials have said a community member’s complaint sparked the investigation.

Officials will need to tack on an additional 20 minutes a day over the 180-day year to get to the 56 hours that the school is currently short on. That could mean earlier starts, later finishes, shortened lunches and transition periods, or other changes.

Meyer emphasized that next year’s schedule will be used as a pilot to “determine whether we might make more substantive changes for future school years.

“While this finding will challenge us,” he wrote in his letter, “there are also opportunities for change and improvement.”

Parents are pushing for officials to create a schedule that puts the 20 additional minutes at the end of the day, while keeping the start time at 8:20 a.m. Some are making their voices heard via a Google Doc petition.

“It has now been extensively documented that teens have circadian rhythms that are naturally shifted towards later sleep onsets and later wake-ups, and so do much better with later start times in high school,” the petition states. “Indeed, evidence shows that even a small delay in start times results in higher attendance, improved grades, better classroom behavior, and positive mental health outcomes.”