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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

> Why do American high schools generally start so early? One large part of the answer: school buses. A lot of school districts re-use the same buses to pick up students from different schools: first the high schoolers, then the middle schoolers, and finally the elementary schoolers.

Not sure what the solution they are suggesting here. Triple the number of buses and bus drivers on the road? Let high schoolers sleep in so that grade schoolers can stand on dark streets at 7:30am? Have grade schoolers stay home until 10:30am stay at school until evening?

Also, having been a teenager [citation needed], I have strong doubts about the "the science" as presented. Had school started two hours later, my natural sleep cycle would probably have... also been delayed two hours.

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One option would be to eliminate dedicated high school buses and instead ensure that there are sufficient public bus routes running at that time to fill the role (with free passes to all high school students). That would cut down on the total number of buses on the road since you aren't duplicating public and school buses, and decrease the number of shifts that the school buses have to run.

Another is to have high schools start last so they can watch their mid-school age siblings while parents go to work.

> ...sufficient bus routes running...

* cries in American *

Your entire premise ("duplicating public and school buses") assumes a public bus infrastructure in the first place. That... is not in general a good assumption for any but the largest US cities.

Urban schools in the US already largely use public transit. The issue is the number of rural school districts in the US.

In my experience the issue is with medium density cities and suburbs, which account for the bulk of the US population.

In the rural area where I grew up, and the few others I am familiar with, the school bus picked all students of all ages at once, because the routes were up to 25 miles one way and it was more efficient to drive them once rather than three times.

In my hometown, all schools started at the same time but where I live now, the lower grades start earlier than the upper grades. Reuse of the same buses might be part of the reason but at least here, the bigger issue is being able to have the same bus driver run multiple routes. The district probably could afford more buses but every year they have more difficulty in finding enough drivers.

This is how it works in my town. My elementary school kids start at 7:20, but I checked their future high school and they start at 8:15.

Logistically it makes sense-- high school kids can get themselves to school even if their parents have already left for work. Sucks for little kids though. My five year old has to be in bed by 7:00pm and even then waking him up is a chore. He sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30 if left undisturbed on weekends.

Bicycles, Denser settlement structures instead of urban sprawl, stricter gun laws. These factors allow kids to go to school on their own in Europe.

Yes, yes and no. I doubt gun laws have anything to do with it.

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