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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

Can't say I'm a fan of this as the father of two elementary school students. The push to accommodate sleepy teenagers means my 5 and 7 year old have to wake before 6 AM to be on the bus by 7:00 AM. If any segment of school age kids are better equipped for an early start it's teenagers who can fully understand the concept of getting a good nights sleep. That kind of reason/logic isn't quite fully developed in a... 5 year old.

Seriously get off the damn cell phone, shut down your Mac and go the fuck to sleep. The more of a routine this becomes the easier it is to drag your ass out of bed early in the morning. Don't force little kids to be in bed at dinner time just because your teenagers are ...cranky.

Maybe I'm showing my old-age here but I think most of this is bull.

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Maybe it's a US thing, but why does "teenagers starting later" mean that your 5 and 7 year old have to be awake so early?

I am guessing it is because of buses; the same bus has to take the highschool kids and the elementary kids. It used to be the highschool kids went first, and then the elementary school kids.. now they are reversing it, so the younger kids have to get up earlier.

Exactly.

The same set of buses is used for elementary, middle, and high schools, so elementary schools in most places tend to start later (like 9am) and the high schools earlier (like 730). The district in the article probably just reversed those times.

Because they use the same school buses for elementary high school, but not at the same time. The routes are based on where the students actually are, so combining them would make transit time significantly longer for each student, plus I'm sure there are other concerns about having rowdy teenagers on the same buses as kindergarten students.

They shifted the bus schedule to better accommodate the older kids which means the younger kids had to catch a bus over an hour earlier. My point is "all kids" drag ass in the morning, but IMHO teenagers are better equipped to deal with it than a child under the age of 10.

Actually if you read the research it disagrees with you.

Younger kids naturally rise earlier than teenagers. You can talk as much as you want about "they should do this" and "understand that", but you can't fight their basic biology.

naa...i think you're dead on. This entire article reads like "We'll adjust everything so that high schoolers don't have to adjust at all".

If you need 10hours of sleep, my all means get it! But adjust your schedule so you get it, don't make everyone else adjust.

Your old age is certainly showing. Younger children typically go to bed before older children be it their choice or their parents forcing bedtimes. Its only logical the older children should have a later wake-up time.

their choice or their parents forcing bedtimes

I would let my kids stay up much later (and they would gladly take me up on the offer) if I didn't have to get them up at 6AM. They aren't newborns who need to go to bed at 5PM, they would bounce of the walls until 10 or 11 if I could let them. This isn't logical, it's the result of the decisions made regarding school start time.

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