School starting times have long been a peeve of mine, even though I don't have kids. When parents work typical office hours, getting kids up and ready for classes that start before 8 am and end around 3 pm has got to be a frustrating ordeal. Of course not all parents work at white collar jobs, but 9-to-5 is probably more common than the agrarian schedule that our school day used to be planned around. Not to mention the impact of dawn classes on the students!
In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County in Kentucky pushed back the first bell to 8:40 a.m., from 7:30 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, as did scores on standardized tests, which have continued to rise each year. Districts in Virginia and Connecticut have achieved similar success. In Minneapolis and Edina, Minn., which instituted high school start times of 8:40 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. respectively in 1997, students’ grades rose slightly and lateness, behavioral problems and dropout rates decreased. Later is also safer. When high schools in Fayette County in Kentucky delayed their start times to 8:30 a.m., the number of teenagers involved in car crashes dropped, even as they rose in the state.
- The Early Bird Gets the Bad Grade - New York Times Op Ed, 1/14/08
Maybe by the time I have kids in the school system, we can establish some more logical opening times. What are the odds of implementing this change? Has this been discussed by our school boards before?
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Its about time this was fixed
Thanks for posting this-- we'd thought we were the only parents who thought this time schedule was not the best we can do. This is elementary school, not high school, but right now I wake up at 6:40AM in order to make the 7:40AM first bell. School gets out at 2:30PM, and my child was in after-school until 5:30PM, which gave her a 10 hour day at school! And after that was dinner, an hour of homework, 20 minutes of music practice, and straight to bed.
There must be some families for whom this worked, but we've since dropped after-school and completely rearranged our work schedules to accommodate the school's getting out at 2:30. The problem is I don't know how much longer we can keep getting by on too little sleep. To our dual career family, the system seems rigged to be most convenient for single-career families who have someone at home at 2:30PM.
My understanding, based on no first-hand knowledge what-so-ever is that the early starting times are a side-effect of reusing buses, and the high schools start at a decent hour. The problem is, my nephew in a Raleigh year-round elementary school starts at 8:45AM, so its got to be more complicated than that.
The time issue, although important, is dwarfed by other aspects of public education have led our family to investigate the many fine private elementary schools in our area for 08/09. After touring several of them, and talking to the teachers and administrators, there doesn't seem to be much of a comparison.
My experience is that
My experience is that most the typical office day in this area is 8-5 pm or 8:30 to 5:30 and all the support staff is expected to be there at that time. Professional staff may get some flexibility, but not the support staff. And guess what, there are more support staff than professional in most of these workplaces.
And the high schools' start time is 8:45 unless your kids go to zero period. Elementary and middle school are earlier.
Anita Badrock (sorry I am still learning this new site).
Cedar Ridge High School...
starts at 8:45am.
It's definitely a really good idea as anyone who has observed teenagers' sleeping patterns can attest.
school start times
High schools in the CHCCS start at 8:45 and release at 3:50, and I remember hearing local discussion about the issues in the NYT article over the years. Middle schools start earlier, and elementary earlier than that, which makes some sense as younger kids tend to get up earlier.
I think the staggered start times between elementary, middle, and high schools are due at least in part to the fact that they share buses, so the same bus does a grade school route, then a middle school route, and lastly a high school route, both in the morning and the afternoon.
I think part of the school day/time thing....
has to do with energy savings. If you get them in early and out before the hottest part of the day, then it costs less in cooling bills? Also, less energy used?
That was always my take on this, my mom went to school in NC back before air conditioning and that is why she said they started before dawn and got out right after lunch.
Unless it was tobacco topping time, or cotton-picking season, then they only went half-days.
Transportation is the issue
A big problem is transportation. There are only so many busses. So you have to use the same busses three times (three shifts of busses). So the elementary kids start ridiculously early, the middle schoolers later, and the high schoolers latest. High school in Chapel Hill starts at 8:45 am and ends at 3:50.
Far more ridiculous than school start/end times is the fact that we still use an agrarian calendar rather than year round. It is absurd to have school start in August or September and end in May or June. Why? Because we've always done it that way? Year round schools would ease overcrowding and make better use of the school buildings.
Of course, this will never happen in Chapel Hill because the university parents would not stand for it.
Not all University parents would agree with you...
This University family is very happy with the year-round schedule at HES. For our son, the 9 weeks on/3 weeks off model works very well for him. I do know of other families who would love to see a year-round option in Chapel Hill.
As for the start time - there is not an easy answer. For us, if we had access to a bus, it would work better. As it is, my day is staggered later than I'd like as I physically cannot make it from HES drop-off line at 7:35 a.m. to the bus stop to catch a bus to arrive before 8:30. Fortunately my husband has flexible afternoons. And our son loves his afterschool activities. On the flip side, there are parents who would have issues with later start times such that they need to be at work and cannot rely on their children to get themselves to school (as evidenced by the discussion at Orange County School Board meetings last spring).
Cheers, K
Staggering?
One suggestion I've heard in the past (and, of course, that seems to get shot down every time I mention it) is staggering times. Rather than having everyone start at the same time, have one group start at 8:00 and another at 10:00, ending at 3:00 and 5:00 respectively. By concentrating the "core classes" in the middle of the day, and having exploratory options at the beginning and end, it seems like it would work for some cases, at least at some ages (standard disclaimers). Of course, with high school only six years behind me, I still look back at the herding of students like cattle using a factory-style bell system designed to make us all good little submissive workers a little ludicrous to begin with. As the video posted on another thread implied, preparing students to work long, repetitive hours in a large group setting has less and less relevance to the rest of their lives than ever before.
Understanding Kids
As a parent, I can tell you that Elementary is not ridiculously early for us. Also, the school does have aftercare at a cost, which is not too expensive and available at reduced cost or no cost to those who cannot afford it.
Long story short, year round schools are not a panacea, but would be preferable to the current calendar, but have nothing to do with timing or this issue.
However, I can tell you my son is pretty much useless in the late afternoon and needs to go to bed by 9. A later start would be a mistake for him and most of his friends.
I am not sure much can be done to help Middle Schoolers. That is just a tough age and as for High School, the studies do indicate it could start later and a 9-5 would not be bad except it would eliminate most after school activities other than sports, which wouldn't be so good for people who may want to do something else.
From personal experience, my son loves his after school and complains when we pick him up early. If school started later, we couldn't make our commute to RTP.
A later starting time would be worse for most working people out there. Sadly, a lot of us still have to be at work by 8 or 8:30 am.
I don't see any problem with the current schedule for working people and the later starting time for High School is about what everyone else is doing.
Chapel Hill, once again is about as good as it gets.
This reminds me of something
Sorry you're view is a little off on this
Our son is in a special program that would require two busses and the school is on our way to work. Essentially, the school system pays twice. I have friends in the Transportation division at CHCCS and based on that information what we do is actually more efficient than having him ride on a half-empty bus.
I understand your concerns and you are basically right, but I just wanted to put the facts out there.
I also have a child in a
In our case...
We do not have transportation. Our son is at Hillsborough Elementary (year round school of choice), and we live way outside the transportation zone. I suppose I could request that he be picked up here, but he'd spend an hour on the bus and have to leave the house around the time he currently wakes up. Happily, in the afternoon he can ride a bus to afterschool, so we don't have to be AT school at 2:20 to get him.
I enjoy the time to talk with him on our morning drive, though with the price of gas, I'm regretting not looking more seriously at homes in Hillsborough a few years ago.
Cheers, K
Whether this start time
Whether this start time works for a family or not is going to be completely contigient on work schedules. And also the kids. Some kids transition poorly in the morning. Some kids need way more sleep than others. Some kids have trouble falling asleep at night.
My understanding is that it is convenient for the elementary schools and families with earlier schedules to not have to do before school care.
On the other hand, I know people who don't work until 9am and would love to have that hour and a half either in the morning with their child or in the evening with them because they could have a later bedtime or leave work earlier. Not to mention afterschool care coming to a 10 hours day, which is fine for some kids and difficult for others.
I feel very fortunate that we've been able to adjust our schedules to the school's schedule. I think part of the answer to these dilemmas is that workplaces could be a lot more accomodating. Is there that much of a difference between working 7:30 to 4:30 or 8:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to 6:00? Would workplaces really come grinding to a halt if all the admins weren't at their desks at the exact same time?
As for why are so many people driving? Some younger kids are not independent enough to ride the bus. And then there's something no one ever seems to talk about which is divorce. People are divorced, shared custody is common and not all divorced parents live in the same school district. So kids may take the bus or walk one week or one day and have to be driven the next depending on which parent they're staying with.