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Comment by dTal | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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