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Comment by codefreeordie | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

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 suburbs have school buses but no other pubic transportation.

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.

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