What Confederacy of Imbiciles Is Working To Prevent A Later Start Time For MCPS High Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to be awesome if the “change boundaries” folks get their wish so HS kids lose another half hour of sleep because they’ve got to get up earlier due to a longer bus ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow - 7 pages of squabbling on this today, and very little actually thoughtful, informative, or productive. On the off-chance that could change ...

The limiting factor logistically for having the staggered start times are the number of buses required to transport everyone. That was the cost identified in the original study. One thing that could be advocated for is increased public transportation during HS/MS start and end times, possibly with "express" buses that have limited stops and additional routes that mimic some of the current school bus runs. As the county's density has increased, the public transportation hasn't kept up. In the long run, it is in the interests of the county to encourage working adults to use public transit, and if students learn to use public transit while in HS/MS, they are more likely to continue using it. Downcounty and along the 270 corridor (355, Great Seneca hwy, Midcounty hwy) from Rockville to Gaithersburg to Germantown to Clarksburg should all have a strong bus network that could serve to get MS and HS students to and from school. If the school buses were reserved for the less dense and more rural areas, you could at least have the HS start time go later to be the same as MS start (8:15a-3:00p). If enough students can take public transit, it might be possible to shift some elementary schools to the 8:15a start time too, and maybe get rid of the late ES tier.

I think that's the next most feasible step in this adjustment process.

This is probably the most reasonable solution/idea in this entire thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - 7 pages of squabbling on this today, and very little actually thoughtful, informative, or productive. On the off-chance that could change ...

The limiting factor logistically for having the staggered start times are the number of buses required to transport everyone. That was the cost identified in the original study. One thing that could be advocated for is increased public transportation during HS/MS start and end times, possibly with "express" buses that have limited stops and additional routes that mimic some of the current school bus runs. As the county's density has increased, the public transportation hasn't kept up. In the long run, it is in the interests of the county to encourage working adults to use public transit, and if students learn to use public transit while in HS/MS, they are more likely to continue using it. Downcounty and along the 270 corridor (355, Great Seneca hwy, Midcounty hwy) from Rockville to Gaithersburg to Germantown to Clarksburg should all have a strong bus network that could serve to get MS and HS students to and from school. If the school buses were reserved for the less dense and more rural areas, you could at least have the HS start time go later to be the same as MS start (8:15a-3:00p). If enough students can take public transit, it might be possible to shift some elementary schools to the 8:15a start time too, and maybe get rid of the late ES tier.

I think that's the next most feasible step in this adjustment process.

This is probably the most reasonable solution/idea in this entire thread.

Not really. Just look at school boundaries. It’s totally impractical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s going to be awesome if the “change boundaries” folks get their wish so HS kids lose another half hour of sleep because they’ve got to get up earlier due to a longer bus ride.

It is a practical reality that needs to be addressed.

[Anonymous]

Good luck changing it. The science was in on this 30+ years ago, and they haven’t changed the times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - 7 pages of squabbling on this today, and very little actually thoughtful, informative, or productive. On the off-chance that could change ...

The limiting factor logistically for having the staggered start times are the number of buses required to transport everyone. That was the cost identified in the original study. One thing that could be advocated for is increased public transportation during HS/MS start and end times, possibly with "express" buses that have limited stops and additional routes that mimic some of the current school bus runs. As the county's density has increased, the public transportation hasn't kept up. In the long run, it is in the interests of the county to encourage working adults to use public transit, and if students learn to use public transit while in HS/MS, they are more likely to continue using it. Downcounty and along the 270 corridor (355, Great Seneca hwy, Midcounty hwy) from Rockville to Gaithersburg to Germantown to Clarksburg should all have a strong bus network that could serve to get MS and HS students to and from school. If the school buses were reserved for the less dense and more rural areas, you could at least have the HS start time go later to be the same as MS start (8:15a-3:00p). If enough students can take public transit, it might be possible to shift some elementary schools to the 8:15a start time too, and maybe get rid of the late ES tier.

I think that's the next most feasible step in this adjustment process.

I’m not sure anyone has suggested all three tiers start at the same time. From what I read, the reasonable alternative is to swap the ES and HS start times and the MS stay the same.

What did you read that made that "the reasonable alternative"? Not the bell times report.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - 7 pages of squabbling on this today, and very little actually thoughtful, informative, or productive. On the off-chance that could change ...

The limiting factor logistically for having the staggered start times are the number of buses required to transport everyone. That was the cost identified in the original study. One thing that could be advocated for is increased public transportation during HS/MS start and end times, possibly with "express" buses that have limited stops and additional routes that mimic some of the current school bus runs. As the county's density has increased, the public transportation hasn't kept up. In the long run, it is in the interests of the county to encourage working adults to use public transit, and if students learn to use public transit while in HS/MS, they are more likely to continue using it. Downcounty and along the 270 corridor (355, Great Seneca hwy, Midcounty hwy) from Rockville to Gaithersburg to Germantown to Clarksburg should all have a strong bus network that could serve to get MS and HS students to and from school. If the school buses were reserved for the less dense and more rural areas, you could at least have the HS start time go later to be the same as MS start (8:15a-3:00p). If enough students can take public transit, it might be possible to shift some elementary schools to the 8:15a start time too, and maybe get rid of the late ES tier.

I think that's the next most feasible step in this adjustment process.

This is probably the most reasonable solution/idea in this entire thread.

Not really. Just look at school boundaries. It’s totally impractical.

What makes it totally impractical? There are lots of high school students and even middle school students who could take public transit to/from school. In fact, there are currently lots of high school students and even middle school students who take public transit to/from school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So who's going to pay for all the new busses and drivers to make sure these start times are convenient for you?

The last report showed the cost at 2-3M per annum. The 2022 operating budget is 2.71B.

That's 0.10%

THIS. Mental health experts agree that sleep deprivation may be the single leading cause of the rise is adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide. This is obviously not solely a matter of bell times. There are a number of reasons sleep has deterioriated in recent years, among them the college rat race encouraging excessive course loads and extracurricular activities, digital device use leading to poor sleep hygiene, and digital device use leading to inefficient study habits.

That being said, we are now at a point where inadequate sleep is actually a matter of life and death. Bell times need to be adjusted. The expenses listed above are a pittance when considered against the value of human lives. That's only the beginning, though. The district and individual school leadership and PTAs need to be far more aggressive about educating parents on this issue and finding ways to promote sleep above and beyond the bell schedules.

As for the argument that this is about older kids needing to take care of younger kids, it doesn't really hold water. If you have high schoolers starting at 0 dark thirty and elementary school students starting at 930... who's taking care of the little kids BEFORE school? You have to deal with this problem on one side or the other, if you're going to recycling buses--either the big kids start earlier and can't take care of little kids in the morning, or the gap is in the afternoon. I would like to see some actual numbers as to how many families this applies to and whether they actually care which end of the day they're getting jammed on. Both options suck, ime.

Finally, the argument about school jobs is pretty bogus too. I wish more kids had afterschool jobs but the data shows this group is vanishingly small. In the end of the day this comes down to the district saving money on buses so that they can overstaff the central office with PhDs, buy lost of Promethean boards, develop ill-fated curricula, and more. Oh, and sports. It's about sports, and if I have to choose between mental health and sports, there's no contest.

Express buses and greater use of public transportation seem like promising possibilities. But the bottom line is that this is a really serious issue, and I dont care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Delaying school start times nationwide to 8:30 a.m. could contribute $83 billion to the U.S. economy within a decade, and almost $9 billion in two years, a new study by the RAND Corporation and RAND EUROPE suggests.

The increases would come from long term effects, like better high-school graduation rates by 13.3%, and a 9.6% college attendance rate, which would outweigh the short-term costs to start school later per student by rescheduling bus routes for transportation.

It’s recommended that teens get an average of 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night, but up to 60% of middle school and high school students report getting less than seven hours on weeknights. That’s because when kids start going through puberty, their brains begin producing the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin on a delayed schedule, making it harder for them to get tired before 11 p.m. So a teen who goes to bed at 11 p.m. would need to sleep until at least 7:30 a.m. or later to get proper rest.

Not enough sleep is linked to childhood obesity, an annual cost of $45 billion. And teens who don’t get enough shut-eye are more likely to commit violent crimes which cost billions annually, according to the report.

Previous studies have suggested that going to school later could benefit kids and teens who scientists say are wired to stay up late. Not getting enough sleep can affect their health and academic performance, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Starting school no earlier than 8:30 a.m. will allow students to be more focused during the day, more alert while driving, and less likely to be late or absent from school.

In 2014, around 93% of high schools and 83% of middle schools in the US started before 8:30 a.m., according to the CDC, and more recently, some school districts have pushed back. Last year, Dobbs Ferry School District in Westchester County, New York started pushing back their middle and high school start times a half hour later from its original 8:15 a.m. for middle school and 7:30 a.m. for high schoolers in an effort to combat sleep deprivation and increase focus. The schools reported major benefits after the time change, like kids being able to actually have time to eat breakfast.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/starting-school-later-could-save-the-us-economy-billions-2017-09-07-10882128

Dobbs Ferry is about the size of downtown Bethesda. There are only three schools in the district- one at each level. The entire high school has about 400 students. It’s a heck of a lot easier to make these kinds of changes with such a tiny district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - 7 pages of squabbling on this today, and very little actually thoughtful, informative, or productive. On the off-chance that could change ...

The limiting factor logistically for having the staggered start times are the number of buses required to transport everyone. That was the cost identified in the original study. One thing that could be advocated for is increased public transportation during HS/MS start and end times, possibly with "express" buses that have limited stops and additional routes that mimic some of the current school bus runs. As the county's density has increased, the public transportation hasn't kept up. In the long run, it is in the interests of the county to encourage working adults to use public transit, and if students learn to use public transit while in HS/MS, they are more likely to continue using it. Downcounty and along the 270 corridor (355, Great Seneca hwy, Midcounty hwy) from Rockville to Gaithersburg to Germantown to Clarksburg should all have a strong bus network that could serve to get MS and HS students to and from school. If the school buses were reserved for the less dense and more rural areas, you could at least have the HS start time go later to be the same as MS start (8:15a-3:00p). If enough students can take public transit, it might be possible to shift some elementary schools to the 8:15a start time too, and maybe get rid of the late ES tier.

I think that's the next most feasible step in this adjustment process.

This is probably the most reasonable solution/idea in this entire thread.

Indeed. Unfortunately the bus driver shortage it's been exacerbated by covid. I guess they need to increase salaries to get more people to apply or have more programs to train people who would like a CDL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Like I said, the science is pretty clear that sending High School students to school at 7:45 is damaging. At the bare minimum the start times should be reversed. HS students should start at 9, elementary schoolers at 7:45. As far as after school jobs and sports, I would think that education and student's mental health should be the priority here.

PP, you may be surprised to learn that all of these issues were explicitly addressed when MCPS made their bell time decision in 2015.

Sure, it's too bad the kids' weren't prioritized over the convenience of adults back then.

https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html

^^^How not to persuade decision-makers to change a policy.

Very true. These decisions aren't made based on the evidence. They're oriented around satisfying a few well-connected interest groups.

Ah yes. The vast reach of low-income parents as a powerful constituency.

Much like the entrenched opposition to automated traffic enforcement, there's nothing more heartwarming than watching wealthy white parents don the robes of Social Justice Warrior when the interests of the poor occasionally intersect with their narrow self-interests.

I suspect the institutional inertia on this has a lot more to do with parents of high-school kids (for whom the evidence of benefits is overwhelming) being outvoted by elementary and middle school parents, who find their own later start times to be a convenience they don't want to part with.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it worked pretty well to have everyone on the same 9 am start schedule last Spring during hybrid learning. I don't think the cost of buses should be the determinative factor. The HS commute could be a longer for some of the older siblings responsible for childcare, but, except for the youngest ES kids, 15-20 minutes alone should not be a huge problem. Put in free aftercare for K-2.

Where does the money come from for that?

I don't know - they did it for COVID equity hubs.

Think about economies of scale, the number of kids who needed a spot in an equity hub it's a lot smaller than all the kids who would need free after care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It’s “Confederacy of Dunces.”

I'm guessing that OP couldn't figure out how to spell dunce either, so went for imbecile.

A borgeioise obsession with spelling is an unerring sign of a mediocre thinker.

bourgeois

Well done Karen, here's a sticker.

Do. That's not what Karen means. You can't fail in both spelling and definitions.

Anyway
My daughter gets home from sports practice at 7pm and we luve 5 minutes from school. I don't see how a later start time is feasible

My high school started at 9a. We had some sports/ extra curricular stuff in the mornings.

Regardless sports aren't really part of school just an optional extracurricular and hardly a major consideration.

I'm sorry your kid can't compete physically with their peers but no one's cutting athletics.

Some areas of the south and Midwest have sports meet before school and then again after vs a longer period after school so that might be a consideration.

Our kids don’t give a crap about mouthbreather nonsense like sports and they will be your kids’ employers one day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Like I said, the science is pretty clear that sending High School students to school at 7:45 is damaging. At the bare minimum the start times should be reversed. HS students should start at 9, elementary schoolers at 7:45. As far as after school jobs and sports, I would think that education and student's mental health should be the priority here.

PP, you may be surprised to learn that all of these issues were explicitly addressed when MCPS made their bell time decision in 2015.

Sure, it's too bad the kids' weren't prioritized over the convenience of adults back then.

https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html

^^^How not to persuade decision-makers to change a policy.

Very true. These decisions aren't made based on the evidence. They're oriented around satisfying a few well-connected interest groups.

Ah yes. The vast reach of low-income parents as a powerful constituency.

Much like the entrenched opposition to automated traffic enforcement, there's nothing more heartwarming than watching wealthy white parents don the robes of Social Justice Warrior when the interests of the poor occasionally intersect with their narrow self-interests.

I suspect the institutional inertia on this has a lot more to do with parents of high-school kids (for whom the evidence of benefits is overwhelming) being outvoted by elementary and middle school parents, who find their own later start times to be a convenience they don't want to part with.

+1,000

I don't know about this. As an ES parent I find the 9 am start time to be a disaster and don't know what I'd do if I had a 930 am start time -I get to work so late as it is. (Maybe I should suck it up and let my kids walk to school/the bus themselves, like in the old days...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Like I said, the science is pretty clear that sending High School students to school at 7:45 is damaging. At the bare minimum the start times should be reversed. HS students should start at 9, elementary schoolers at 7:45. As far as after school jobs and sports, I would think that education and student's mental health should be the priority here.

I was taught younger kids need more sleep. I would rather a high schooler start early than ES. My high school started at 8, but I think all the levels started around the same time.

Younger kids need more sleep and go to bed earlier. This is directly backwards to the known, proven teen healthy sleep patterns. Links to the relevant data on that have already been posted here.

The idea that high schoolers should have to be at school at 7:30AM every day because their parents feel entitled to use them as free babysitters is asinine.