8:30 or later. Good. I say start it at 10. Let the kids sleep in and be happier for it.
What's worse is the end of day. My kid is younger and I need to be at the bus stop at 3:50 PM every day to meet her.
Not sure why this is a big deal. Kids can manage on their own.
After school, sometimes I'd hunt a bear for dinner.
Jeez, we've really infantilized our kids.
Though, with that said, I don't know what is the youngest age I could generalize it with. Depends so much on the maturity of the child and also how far where you live is from the bus stop. But I think it is safe to say that age is equal to or less than 13.
But this was a time when neighbors knew each other well and you could go next door for help if you needed it. (and also if you did something dumb, you could count on your mom finding out from a neighbor)
Sorry, my kids aren't riding the bus.
Schools shouldn't be forcing developing humans into a schedule that impairs their ability to learn and function, no matter what they want to decide
On the other hand if you do nothing mentally stimulating or physically tiring all day long, then of course you won’t be able to sleep till late.
You heard it boys and girls, back to ploughing the fields it is!
"Schools shouldn't be forcing developing humans into a schedule that impairs their ability to learn and function, no matter what they want to decide"
If you actually believe that, then you have to be against this law. Any schedule will negatively affect someone. A later schedule would have been terrible for me.
As someone that has sleep issues that deviate vastly from the norm, I empathize with this point, but it doesn't really mean much when it comes to designing policy, which is supposed to serve its demographic broadly.
> Societal life should be a factor as that does factor into the holistic well-being of the student. Not just some myopic rule about start times that negatively impacts everything else (after school activities, jobs, parent schedules, etc).
The rule being set by the state or by the local school district is hardly of consequence. You're okay with painting broad strokes about parents' lives but then make an argument about individual students.
> If you actually believe that, then you have to be against this law. Any schedule will negatively affect someone. A later schedule would have been terrible for me.
Unless you're suggesting that the start times be adjusted to cater to every single individual's needs, this is just pointing out that the start time the school you attended coincided with what worked for you personally.
Which the current times do.
"The rule being set by the state or by the local school district is hardly of consequence."
This is totally untrue. At the district level, parents have more say in creating the rules that work for them (their local demographic!).
"You're okay with painting broad strokes about parents' lives but then make an argument about individual students."
Either one is broad. I'm pointing out that the very argument you make can be used against the position you're defending.
According to... what? The whole reason that California passed a law like this and why it's been suggested to push up the start time for high school is largely because the time that many school districts started their high schoolers at was of negative consequence to the children.
> This is totally untrue. At the district level, parents have more say in creating the rules that work for them (their local demographic!).
Are you saying that you'd have no objections if the local school district chose to start high school at a later time? I might agree with you that the state is overstepping its bounds by mandating an earliest start time, but that doesn't seem to be what you're complaining about. It seems more that you disagree that a later start time is beneficial to students (because you personally benefitted from the early start time of your high school) and that it's inconvenient to parents because they have to figure out the logistics of getting their kid to school at a later time.
That hasn't been proven yet. I guess we'll see with the next year's test scores compared to this year. I don't expect much to change test-wise. I do expect extracurricular partipation will drop.
"Are you saying that you'd have no objections if the local school district chose to start high school at a later time? "
Yes, I would be fine with districts starting later if the district was the one deciding it based on parental representation. At least then we could have a local discussion and do what works best for us.
Not really, tehre seems to be 3 groups of people:
1 - Adults that get some kind of power trip out of tyrany and making kids miserable and justifying it by 'toughening them up'. They deman respect and dicipline while demonstrating total disrespect towards kids and usually have little dicipline themselves. They will have endless stories about how their childhood was tough, and they had to talk to school and home 10 miles, alone, thorugh the snow, and it was uphill both ways
2 - Adults that 'care', by helicoptering over kids and try to shape them into a career they wish they pursued themselves. These guys are hardly better.
3 - Adults that actually respect children as people with independant thoughts and emotional needs
Your list also entirely excludes neglectful parents, whose lack of presence and guidance can be of great detriment to their children's progress in life.
I think that there are a lot of parents who might encompass all sorts of different stereotypes as they try to raise their children the best they can. "Toughening up" children is important. Building up resiliency in a controlled and safe environment is necessary for a person to navigate regular life. Showing compassion and interest in your children is important because it allows them to live their most honest selves. Providing structure for children is important because it helps them succeed in a world that very much relies on various constructs.
I think ultimately, parenthood is hard and finding the right balance of things is hard and unfortunately, you can't just undo the mistakes that can have lifelong impact on your children. I don't think my parents raised me the best they could have, but I don't doubt that they definitely tried.
Me too. I have always been an early riser, early sleeper. Forcing me to go to school later in the day would have been awful.
I think the goal of these sorts of policies is to increase the breadth of students which can benefit from you know, actually being well rested inside school hours. A person that sleeps later and wakes up later (which studies that justify these sorts of policies indicates teenagers largely are) would benefit from a later start time.
Of course, the buses won't run that early, so only well-to-do parents will be able to use those daycares in the first place, leaving poor parents even worse off than they were before.
Do you think something magically happens on their 18th birthday?
The bigger issue is requiring some sort of pre-care. Which if necessary, makes this whole law moot because you're waking the kid up for that.
It's to late to help us.. my youngest just turned 16 and will be able to drive themself to school next year and we'll finally get decent sleep during the school year. But this would be a big boon to lots of people.
1) The flipside to starting much later is that kids will be exiting schools later. Want to participate in some after school activities or clubs that aren't physically in school? A HS kid wants to hold down a little part time job so she can save to buy that first car or afford that summer trip she wants? Any activities out of school become much more difficult to manage if the exiting time moves any later. And these extracurriculars are also a big part of many peoples' lives.
2) I think it's naive to think that kids will get much extra sleep regardless of the school starting time. Their need for socialization and leisure activities out of school doesn't suddenly vanish if school starts later: they just get shifted. If you tell kids that they can manage to wake up at 9 instead of 7 and still make it to school on time, they'll just tend to stay up about 2 hours later playing games, watching movies, or chatting with friends. The end result might be about the same amount of sleep.
3) Logistically, it's hard enough for most parents to see their kids for a few minutes and deal with getting their kids out of the door in the morning (or driving them to school) when their wakeup times roughly coincide and they can get a little breakfast together or have a few minutes to chat. Trying to arrange a much different school schedule for kids is going to present a lot more difficulties to working parents, particularly if the kid has some special needs, is a tad rebellious about going to school, or you have to drive them for some other reason.
Just thinking out loud here, but I'd say that getting rid of the nightly busy work (homework) is a better way to fix teens schedules. They already spend enough time at school learning. Stop forcing them to waste an hour or two every night regurgitating mostly busy work and then feeling like crap and needing to stay up another few hours decompressing. Let them get their fill of fun and socialization after a long day. Without the burden of homework, most teens have enough extra time in the day to get a little extra rest and still have enough to unwind and feel like a human.
2) There have been bunches of studies that show teenagers don't get proper sleep specifically when they get up early. There is something about that age that requires sleeping later to get good rest. No matter when they go to bed.
3) Who says their waking coincides with the current times? Doesn't for us. Something like 9:30 or 10:00 would.
You have reinvented the German Gymnasium (grammar school). Congratulations.
To comment on your points...
> 1) They wouldn't need to get out any later. Most of the school day is basically baby sitting and they could easily fit the actual teaching in <4 hours.
I agree that they wouldn't need to get out any later and that most of the school day is a waste and can be radically compressed, but I sincerely doubt that this is what would happen. If we're talking about showing up to school later and leaving at the same time, I'd say that's a big win over the current situation. Please tell me I've misread things and this is what we're talking about. I'd be happy to have that be the outcome, but I doubt it.
> 2) There have been bunches of studies that show teenagers don't get proper sleep specifically when they get up early. There is something about that age that requires sleeping later to get good rest. No matter when they go to bed.
I've seen similar tendencies in the studies I've come across as well, but I'm not convinced that the stats are interpreted correctly based on human nature. My thinking is that the people who need sleep the most probably aren't going to go to bed at a sane time and end up with a large net sleep gain. That said, I'm a little open-minded about this point applying to many (but not all people)
> 3) Who says their waking coincides with the current times? Doesn't for us. Something like 9:30 or 10:00 would.
Everybody's job and life situation is different, but I'd bet that a lot of lower income people have to deal with getting to work earlier, and have more transportation issues (trying to connect to multiple busses and trains, etc) and more complex childcare requirements necessitating less overall time flexibility in the morning.
I'd wager it's largely the technical, white-collar class that can show up later and generally has a quicker path to work (work in pajamas in living room, or hop into the car in the driveway and drive to work with no connecting delays)
Or they could just give that time back. Maybe things have changed, but back when I was in school, almost every class was a waste of time.
This is how people can go to college and spend comparatively little time in class yet learn more than they did in high school.
A plurality ~35% of high school students are driven to school, though not necessarily by a parent.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739456X1772514...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/how-dista...
EDIT: This is nationwide, there's reason to believe this percentage is probably higher in California.
Bus was awful. Kids had no respect for the driver or other kids. Plus it easily tripled the commute time.
If I drove them (or when they were old enough to drive on their own), they could sleep nearly an hour later than if they had to take the bus. Since it wasn't much of a detour on my way to work, that's what I did.
I spent most of my school aged years in an city with a mediocre transit system. Most parents did not drive their kids to school except in very bad weather. Also, most people attended the school closest to their home. This meant the mediocre transit system used buses for special school routes usable only by students. I rarely took this bus as I preferred to bike or walk in about the same amount of time the bus would take.
Where I live now, something similar happens at least for the kids that are bussed across town to achieve a somewhat consistent racial mix in all schools.
Has everyone driving their kids to school eroded the viability of walking, biking, or taking a school bus?
Exactly. Similar to the problem many adults have trying to get to work by bus, it often doubles or triples a commute time.
If they're in after school activities and/or have a job, then it seem unlikely that they would get into trouble anyways. Pushing the time back will make these after school activities unfeasible for many, and limit opportunities.
If you can't leave them unsupervised in the mornings, surely they can't be left alone after school either. Net net, there's going to be some time they're unsupervised. May as well let them get some rest. Maybe the lack of sleep deprivation will even encourage better decision-making.
After school has after school activities. It also typically means they don't need to cook if the parents are home for dinner.
Dictating diet by limiting options doesn't sound like a great plan to me.
You know what else is a non-problem? The current start times.
Their voice at the state level is highly diluted by non-interested parties. Voting for school board members tends to be more focused and doesn't have as many people voting based on non-school issues like you would for a general representative.
if a 15 year old can't be unsupervised at home, then their parents have different problems besides letting them cook for themselves.
As an anecdote, 100% of my class was coming to the school and back without being supervised since age 8. This was in 90s and not in the US, but the gap of "mature enough to go to school" between my experience and the statement feels a bit high, somehow.
> The American obsession with helicoptering their kids all the way through their first job is super weird and unhealthy.
My kids, along with many others, were getting themselves to & from school without my supervision starting in third grade. Earlier, even, for my son since his sister is two years older and was with him.
This is normal. What is the fascination that so many Europeans (and others) have with making wild unsupported assertions about what Americans do and then build an entire critique from that?
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Modern parents would have a heart attack.
That's insane. I walked to school at 6. At 8, I walked to the bus stop and rode a public transit bus to school. The helicoptering has gone way to far and it is creating generations of crippled kids. I wonder if this is solely caused by the media pushing fear or if there are other factors.
In most cases, this should work out better for parents. With elementary school starting latest (as was the norm in many places a decade ago), the little kids end up in pre-care AND after-care. Now, they’ll start earlier, possibly avoiding pre-care.
Sometimes I have to start work at 4am, does that mean that schools should start at 3am to make it convenient for me? What about when I finish at 11pm? What if I'm working overnight?
That sounds incredibly privileged.
https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/overflow-data-finds-th...
Nearly all workers that perform non-mental labour.
You should really consider talking to some less privileged people sometime.
Most of the world's workers aren't white collar, are they?
Even if they were, are all white collar jobs allowing full remote these days?
Everyone I know that works in a location works shift patterns or other non 9-5 jobs. My wife might start at 7.30 am one day, or another day not finish to 9pm.
If you're working 9-5 every day it's increasingly unlikely you need to be in a specific place to do so. Those who do work in specific places tend to have to cover a far larger range than 9-5 and thus require alternate child care arrangements anyway.
https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/0006-322... https://you.com/search?q=light+melatonin+production
1. They know they and everyone else will just stay up later. 2. School will go on too late in the day, sports participation is dropping appreciably. 3. Those who work after school or school/sports are quitting sports to work, and planning ways to leave when they did previously to go to work.
This is incredibly short-sighted, and will not last a year.
Anecdotally, when I was in high school, with a 7:30 AM start, around 25% of the class was asleep through 1st period. And this was in honors/AP courses with the kids who wanted to learn, get good grades, and generally be successful.
So my anecdotes don't match your's.