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tailspin2019

> Terra Ziporyn Snider of Severna Park, Maryland, still remembers how difficult it was for her son to wake up for his 7:17 a.m. first-period class…

> That’s about to change in California, when a law—the first of its kind in the nation—goes into effect on July 1 requiring the state’s public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and its middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m.

Wow. I may need to reassess my definition of “sleeping in”.

(Spoken as someone who had incredible difficulty getting to school by 8.50am back in the day and who hasn’t gotten up before 10.30am in the last week!)

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Does that law account for "zero period"? From my quick reading of the bill, I think it does not -- so probably not that much will actually change. School may start at 8:30, but zero period will still start around 7:30, and some schools might create a double-zero to go earlier still.

It is absurd how early schools start. Objectively, there was no good reason why I had to be on my spot on the field at 7:08a every morning only to be done by 2:50p.

I recall reading in numerous places that the reason for that is so that the same bus fleet can be re-used to bring the elementary school children in at the far more reasonable time of 9 AM. I don't know if it's true, but if it is it's a uniquely American social phenomenon - inadequate public transport, a strange mixture of nanny state mentality and indifference to the welfare of children, and penny pinching all combining into a perfect storm of chronic sleep deprivation for an entire demographic of developing brains.

Another explanation I've read is to make room in the afternoon schedule for varsity sports practice. Honestly I'm not sure which is worse.

Is there a reason the US have a specific kind of school bus rather than using the same vehicles as public transport?

I would think that using normal public transport vehicles means there would be more capacity rolling around that can easily be diverted for school bus services during the peaks, rather than having a very limited set of special-purpose vehicles?

Many suburbs have school buses but no other pubic transportation.

Because most areas have few or no public buses.

Yeah, in my country, the school bus program was just discounted annual tickets for the regular bus service, and a consideration for school locations/start times when designing the schedule for the regular buses

My school district in California also put us on a city bus. I can't remember now whether we got a discount or full vouchers, but the bus line/schedule had definitely been chosen to support the school. It worked great and also familiarized me with the bus system, so when I grew into middle/high school I knew the lines and could get wherever.

Aha, a controlled experiment - did your high schools start at a reasonable hour?

No not really, at least when I attended. I checked and 1st period is at 9am now, which is better. There was a cluster of suicides in my grade and the grades after, which might have led to the change. I left after 10th grade to finish high school at the community college down the road, which is a really excellent program offered to students who aren't "doing well" at the high schools. Honestly this option (Middle College) probably saves lives. The only hard constraint was a 12-2pm (iirc) class with the other high schoolers, and other than that we chose our own course schedule from the community college.

many areas will have an 'official unofficial' public bus that coordinates its route to transfer students to the school bus and vice-versa at the end of the day. in effect this means having to wake up even earlier though.

The law does actually - you can have zero period but it can’t count towards the instructional time required for students.

It’s actually deeply annoying for my daughter’s high school. It already started 1st period at 830, but since 0 period no longer “counts”, the day is getting extended by almost an hour for all students.

This is from an email from our district earlier in the year:

The exceptions to this are zero period classes. Since zero period classes are optional and not required, these classes may begin before 8:30 AM; they just cannot be used to meet the instructional minute's requirements of 64,800 annual schoolwide instructional minutes

What is zero period?

The period before 1st period.

1st period being the first "official" period of the day, which now can't begin before 8:30a.

Originally, it began life as the before-school time for athletics and other organized extra-curriculars, but once it existed, it became a full-fledged period of instruction, as high-achieving students needed to cram ever more "elective" courses in order to compete for the top university slots.

Even 25 years ago when I was in high school, there was talk of creating a double-zero for the athletics, the marching band, and the extra-curriculars, so that elite students could "still afford" to do them.

In my district, it didn't happen (With zero starting at 7:08a, double-zero would have been 6:03a, if I'm remembering class length correctly). One of the reasons why it didn't happen is that since there is no "honors athletics" which can be graded on the 5-point scale, elite students couldn't afford the grade points to take them anyway.

This is a really cynical take.

I took zero period just because I wanted to take additional subjects. I also didn't want to waste a period on P.E. so I did various varsoty sports after school since it counted for a semester each. I took jazz band in 0 period.

And I never even bothered applying to college senior year of high school.

At my school, band was 1st period, orchestra was 2nd period, and the band teacher was away for the rest of the day teaching band and orchestra at elementary schools. Jazz band was either in 0 period or didn't exist.

A lot of the organized sports would do practice as a 0 period (for us, we needed 4 semesters of PE, and marching band or organized sport could count for 2 of those; so I took up cymbals for the marching band, cause ugh PE)

When I was in high school it was additional training for athletes before class. For all our programs it was geared towards strength and conditioning.

If I remember correctly, we started around 7am.

Sounds like what we called 'early bird'. And, as an early bird, I loved it. I understand why the people who need to sleep in feel strongly about it, but still, everyone talks like that's the only correct answer. Can't make everyone happy.

When I was in high school some 20 years ago, I had to be up no later than 6 if I wanted to make my zero period choir class. And moving it after school was a no go due to related (theater or band) extra-curriculars. Regular school started at 7:20. We have exchange students, and it's slightly better for them at 7:45…

I think I only made it to 'homeroom' a dozen or so times the entire time I was in high-school. I would have love and thrived under this.

I had to get up at 5:30AM in high school to catch the bus in time. My bus ride was 45 minutes, and I was the first pickup.

In the afternoon, I was the last dropoff, which I thought was grossly unfair.

Hah, same for 3/4 years of my high school!

I've managed to train myself to fall asleep on the way back and wake up when the noise in the bus quiets down, in between the second to last and my stop.

I gasped at the 7:17am opening class time. That's absurd. I think mine was something like 8-8:30am, and even that was hell. It would even be absolute hell now as an adult.

I honestly think our schools are a generally a massive waste of time and money, as they are now. Meaning, they meed to i prove. They have basically become daycare centers. The education is really not good, and no one is learning anything. Then you graduate only to be greeted with the basically mandatory acceptance of debt and another four years of extended high school or a lifetime of labor jobs.

Idk, it is a matter of preference. I was hard for me to get up for school because I went to sleep late, because I didn't care enough about school. If the school started (and ended) later, then I'd to sleep even later. What mostly matters after all is the number of hours you slept.

When I got to the army I needed to constantly get up at around 0530. What I found out is that it's not a problem for me (and I firmly believed it would be nearly impossible) if I go to sleep early enough. It worked for most of people around me as well. Since then I don't think getting up earlier or later really matters, I decide it based on the stuff I want to do and not the other way around.

My HS (early 2000s in the Midwest) started at 7:0x through the years, I remember 7:04 and 7:07 start times. It was all about “minutes of education” as that’s what the funding for schools was based on. 5 minutes between classes to hit your locker, the restroom, chat with friends, and get to your next class. They were such jerks about it that they’d literally lock the doors to the classrooms the second the bell rang, then do hall sweeps with the security guards and anyone who didn’t get into a classroom got automatic detention. If that happened 3 times in a school year, you’d get a week suspension and your parents would have to come in and talk to one of the vice principals.

> They were such jerks about it that they’d literally lock the doors to the classrooms the second the bell rang, then do hall sweeps with the security guards and anyone who didn’t get into a classroom got automatic detention.

They wouldn't lock the door at my school, but teachers would generally give you detention when you arrived late. Teachers would also take it personally if you didn't have the textbook for their class with you despite there not being nearly enough time to get to your locker and back. Add to that the fact that teachers often would still be trying to finish things up when the bell rang and wouldn't let us leave, and we'd end up with the perfect storm of being forced to strain to carry all of the textbooks for most of the day just to avoid detention but then end up still being late due to not being let out on time and having to walk slowly because of the said textbooks. And then they'd occasionally lecture us for ruining our posture with our heavy bags like we had any control over the situation...

I went to a high school in the same district as this one, 7:17 am was absolutely brutal. I had it timed down to the minute so I could sleep as long as possible and not be late once I started driving myself.

While in our high-school equivalent in Austria I had to be at school at 7:50.

This was very unfortunate as I lived in another state and had to sit 2 hours in public transit, so I had to wake up at 5:45.

I remember almost sleeping after lunch and not learning anything because I was too tired.

This stuff should be fixed everywhere. Getting up this early is not helpful.

Exactly. Even these times are absurd. When did this bullshit begin, anyway?

My elementary school started at 9. I don't remember when junior high started, but high school was 8:40 I think for homeroom.

Then school ended at 3. If kids are starting school at 7, when does their day end? What excuse are schools giving for this?

When I was teaching, I'd get into school for about 7:15am (so wake up at about 5am), so I could make sure I was prepared for my lessons that day. My first class was never before 9am, and school ended at 3:30pm.

I just couldn't have coped classes starting that early.

What did you do for two hours fifteen minutes?

- Write lesson plans for the department.

- Prepare materials for students to work on.

- Mark students' work.

- Write assessment reports on students for parents.

- Write department action plans.

- Complete SEN reports on selected students.

- Complete CPD in electronics and CS to upskill in the subjects I taught.

- Prototype new projects that the students would engage with in the future.

I could go on. For about every hour I spent actually teaching in a classroom, there was half an hour spent planning, assessing or completing admin work. I regularly worked 12 hour days, plus weekends, and all those long holiday that we were supposed to get.

I was talking specifically of the morning.

That was my morning, my evenings, my weekends and my "holidays". I could have added more to the list. Teaching is not about babysitting kids for 60 minutes while you scroll though a PowerPoint.

I know obviously that it isn't. If only because when I went to school there was no PowerPoint and I am old enough to have TA'd on a blackboard with chalk.

Personally, nothing about the answer implies that the given list was not tackled in the morning.

It also didn't include anything that had to be done in the morning such as commuting. I am not suggesting that school should start at 7:15 but, if school began and ended earlier, all of those activities could be moved after school ended (possibly to the previous day).

Yeah, my high school started at 8:50 am too, and that still felt too early. This article mentioned that Seattle high schools used to start at 7:50 am, that seems absolutely nuts.

I’d peg roughly 9:30 am as a good time for high schools to start.

Ireland here. My school (which thought entirely through Irish, aside from English lessons, obviously, advertised itself as starting and finishing early, and it started at 08:30 as well.

I'm more interested into what kind of school starts at 7:17?!

I mean... 7am, I get... 7:17?! Did someone throw the dart at the clock and hit the 17 minute mark?

Probably something like 7:00-:15 assembly, +:02 for moving time

I never had anything not aligned to '5' minute intervals (5 minutes breaks minimum between classes, and one or two longer one, 15, 25 minutes).

At college, everything was 15 past full hour, for 45 minutes, then 15 minute break.

If anyone had to change their definition of anything based on article headlines, the world would be an even more fucked up place

People who have different sleep schedules make the world a fucked up place?

I'm commenting on the accuracy of article headlines and nothing more

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