Early middle school bell crushing DC

[Anonymous]

DC gets up at 6:20 to catch 6:50 bus. She has gradually looked worse and worse every morning this week. Dark circles under eyes, red eyes, no energy. She’s doing lights out at 9pm, and I don’t know how we could do it much earlier at her age. 8 pm is a tough sell for an almost teenager. She clearly needs more than the 9ish hours, but I don’t know when she’d get that extra hour. Do they adjust or are they just tired a lot for two years? She starts her fall sport next week and it’s going to be rough.

[Anonymous]

It takes time.

I would also really encourage vitamins and possibly iron supplements for tween girls. My DD would up being low iron through her early teen years and we chalked up her tiredness to her school schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC gets up at 6:20 to catch 6:50 bus. She has gradually looked worse and worse every morning this week. Dark circles under eyes, red eyes, no energy. She’s doing lights out at 9pm, and I don’t know how we could do it much earlier at her age. 8 pm is a tough sell for an almost teenager. She clearly needs more than the 9ish hours, but I don’t know when she’d get that extra hour. Do they adjust or are they just tired a lot for two years? She starts her fall sport next week and it’s going to be rough.

It’s been a long week. We make our son (7th grade) do lights out at 8:30 pm. On day 1 we tried 9 pm bedtime and it didn’t work. I had to physically get him out of the bed the next am. He wasn’t able to get up on his own. He has to get up at 6:00 am and we drive (bus is way to early). He is not fast in the am. We leave by 6:50 am. He is now getting up on his own but we are very strict about 8:30 pm. It sucks!

[Anonymous]

It is crazy to be when FCPS decided to move high schools to a later start time that they sacrificed middle school start times to make it work. Arguably middle schoolers need more sleep than high school students. I get the logistics problems, but it sucks.

[Anonymous]

Its horrible. When a 13 yo boy is too tired to eat, its ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

They'll adjust some, but mainly, as pp notes, it sucks! We happen to be at one of the 6-8th middle schools so count your blessings it's only 2 years for your DC.

[Anonymous]

It got worse and worse for my son as the year went on. The spring time change was the absolute worst. His bedtime is 8, which is ridiculous. His ES sibling goes to bed at 9:30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It got worse and worse for my son as the year went on. The spring time change was the absolute worst. His bedtime is 8, which is ridiculous. His ES sibling goes to bed at 9:30.

Ugh, that’s not good to hear. Why can’t they make the start time 7:50 am instead? Even that small amount would help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It got worse and worse for my son as the year went on. The spring time change was the absolute worst. His bedtime is 8, which is ridiculous. His ES sibling goes to bed at 9:30.

Ugh, that’s not good to hear. Why can’t they make the start time 7:50 am instead? Even that small amount would help.

Buses. They need the same buses to take HS and then ES kids to school. Somehow fairfax says they can’t switch school start times like Loudoun, which has ES go first.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is weird. ES should go first, then MS, then HS. I mean my ES kid is up at the crack of dawn and we need to wait three hours until school starts.

[Anonymous]

There are plenty of solutions. FCPS allows parents to opt students in MS/HS for a partial day. Depending on how bad it really is, you could have them change his schedule to have a free period during the first block. You would have to drive him, but it would allow him to get more sleep.

If he has an IEP or 504, it should be even easier to get approved.

The schools are short staffed and over crowded, so they are thrilled whenever there is one less student in a class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of solutions. FCPS allows parents to opt students in MS/HS for a partial day. Depending on how bad it really is, you could have them change his schedule to have a free period during the first block. You would have to drive him, but it would allow him to get more sleep.

If he has an IEP or 504, it should be even easier to get approved.

The schools are short staffed and over crowded, so they are thrilled whenever there is one less student in a class.

Do kids typically have free periods in middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of solutions. FCPS allows parents to opt students in MS/HS for a partial day. Depending on how bad it really is, you could have them change his schedule to have a free period during the first block. You would have to drive him, but it would allow him to get more sleep.

If he has an IEP or 504, it should be even easier to get approved.

The schools are short staffed and over crowded, so they are thrilled whenever there is one less student in a class.

Do kids typically have free periods in middle school?

No, you have to request it.

[Anonymous]

It is awful. Kids have sports late - like 9pm because of field shortages. Kid is so tired now.

[Anonymous]

DD has gym and band for first classes. We're thinking of just letting her miss all of them and fail those classes