Do you feel that your research was sold to the public by the district as a panacea?
Now I am sure we have done some communications mistakes. For example the algorithm does not "decide" the start times. You just give it a (long) list of preferences and objectives (e.g., less HS students starting early, more fairness across the population...), and then the algorithm generates thousands of solution that try to satisfy these objectives. Solutions are carefully reviewed, and the objective updated if we think we can do better.
So in the end, this research is just a tool, it does not solve all the problems, and in the end people still need to find a way to agree. Hopefully they have a little bit more information to do so!
So, was the real motivation here one of efficiency and cost-savings then?
That is a clear thorn they might have wanted to solve.
Is the added sleep beneficial to students, all other things equal? I'm sure it is, but was the real motivation a cost savings and the sleep deprivation a nice cover for the real motivation?
There has been a lot of research on high school students lack of sleep, and it seems that the school times do have a important impact on the students :
BPS is pretty forward-thinking, and lots of research has shown that high school students are better off with later start times. Don't dismiss this as the actual motivation.