Petition: Later MCPS school start times

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post the link to the current petition?

Every year some kook posts about teenagers needing more sleep. They feel the county has to set boundaries for their children because they don't want toparent.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So many decisions are made based on free transportation. Snow days, flooded roads, start times, end times. It’s ridiculous. We need to do away with school buses, boost the public buses and make decisions based on what’s best for our kids.

You want elementary school kids to get on RideOn buses alone?

Even if you limited it to HS, RideOn routes could never scale up to meet the demand before and after school.

In plenty of cities ES kids get in the bus. At the very least MS/HS kids get on the bus and train.

I have a hard time imagining my 6-year-old getting on a city bus. Actually no, I know exactly what would happen.

Regardless, let's say, as you seem to suggest, we keep buses for ES, and have MS/HS ride non-school public transportation.

How would that work? RideOn only carries 57,000 riders per day. MCPS reports 100,000 students ride the bus, typically twice per day. That's an extra 200,000 rides.

Now, obviously not all of those are middle/high school students, but you're still looking at increasing rides per day by 3-4x.

Worse, those rides obviously aren't spread throughout the day or throughout the system. Most of the riders would be going to a handful of places. But they'd need to get picked up from wider range of bus stops than currently exist. So many, many more buses would be needed. For only on some routes that pass schools, and only for a couple hours each day.

In an area of higher density housing, workplaces, and transit, this could be workable. You would expect a higher percentage of walkers. And higher-capacity rail service carrying some of the burden. But this wouldn't work in a place like MoCo.

I don't think you're familiar with how RideOn and Metrobus work in Montgomery County. You go to a bus stop, you get on the bus, you take the bus until you get to your stop, then you get off. And many of the routes have different frequencies, depending on time of day.

I don't think you understand the massive increase in resources that would be necessary to accommodate potentially 200,000 more rides each day. And high schools and middle schools aren't transit hubs in the current county bus routes.

And what about the wide swaths of the county that aren't anywhere near a bus stop?

You make this statement like increasing ridership and transit routes/capabilities should not be a key priority for a county that wants to grow and keeps building dense housing. For that matter a county that has Sustainability goals.

Except adults wouldn't be going to the same place as kids, so those new buses would take awfully circuitous routes.

Why? Most of the high schools, right now, are served by existing routes. Kids could take existing buses, on existing routes, to and from school. Which kids are actually currently doing, right now. Even middle-school kids.

You can't be serious. Do you have idea how many school buses serve each high school compared to the number of RideOn buses that stop near the high school within 30 minutes of start time?

Do you think buses are magical vehicles with unlimited capacity? And what about all the kids that to those schools that don't happen to be served by the bus route that goes to the school? You think there's enough capacity at transfer points and routes?

You're either trolling or you haven't thought this through. I'm not sure which.

If you think high school start times should be later (which maybe you don't, who knows), then you have to provide solutions for how kids will get to and from school without expanding school bus transportation.

Existing public transportation is one of those solutions. Not the only solution. Not the solution that will work for everyone everywhere in the county. Not the solution that would allow MCPS to say: starting next year, all schools start at 8 am, and we expect everyone to take RideOn/Metrobus/Metrorail to school!!!! But ONE OF THOSE SOLUTIONS. Why are you disagreeing with this? It's ALREADY one of the transportation solutions for MCPS kids, but here you are saying no no no no unpossible no.

In fact, MCPS should be doing it already, regardless of school start times.. It makes no sense to expend more public funds on a separate, parallel school bus transportation system, in places where the public bus transportation can serve the purpose. It's wasteful of MCPS money and Montgomery County money, and it's also bad for the environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by the conversation. I haven't followed this round, but the same issue was prominent a few years ago, and the solution was to flip the ES and HS start times (for bus logistics).

Two birds. HSers get more reasonable start times, and ES parents get their kids off at a time that allows them to get to work at a normal time. Granted, the latter issue seems less problematic now that a lot people tend to have more flexible work schedules. But there's still a huge number of people who really struggle because ES starts 30 minutes after they should be at work.

Have you read this?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/info/belltimesworkgroup/Rpt2013BellTimesWorkGrpReport.pdf

[Anonymous]

My h.s. kid says she loves the morning bus because everyone is sleeping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still haven't seen anyone who supports changing the bell times respond to the fact that many high school students have after-school jobs, and many others look after their younger siblings after school. Are people saying we should just ignore the needs of these families?

Younger elementary aged siblings are not getting home until almost 4:30. There may be some who care for baby and toddler siblings after school but probably not as many as you think. Maybe someone should prioritize the health and adequate sleep of high school students for once. Why must we always prioritize the needs of adults?

School ends at 3:20 for half of the elementary schools. At my school, lots of kids are picked up by their older siblings, so it's not a question of what I think but what I see. We're not talking about the needs of adults, we're talking about the safety of younger students.

[Anonymous]

If hs kids need more sleep why can't they go to bed earlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If hs kids need more sleep why can't they go to bed earlier?

Have you read this?

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/info/belltimesworkgroup/Rpt2013BellTimesWorkGrpReport.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If hs kids need more sleep why can't they go to bed earlier?

Wow, what an insightful comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If hs kids need more sleep why can't they go to bed earlier?

That requires parenting and these posters believe the county should raise their kids for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Later? My kid's school doesn't start until nearly 9:30!

If we're going to push back high school, we need more buses to at least avoid needing to do two runs for elementary schools.

It is a petition for HS, but I've seen it and it does not grapple at all with any of the issues raised by the Bell Times Report. It makes a good case for the science behind teen sleep, but that doesn't answer the problems that have already been raised with making high schoolers start later. It's my opinion that MCPS won't meaningfully engage with this question until/unless someone comes up with some solutions for those barriers.

Yes, all children need sleep. In fact,all humans need sleep. If you child isn't getting enough sleep try making them go to be earlier.

[Anonymous]

I think we should operate on a 2 hour delay every Wednesday. HS students can sleep in, teachers get 2 extra hours for grading and lesson planning and meetings, older siblings can watch younger siblings in the afternoon, we don’t need any extra buses, it won’t cost the district extra money, kids can still have EC activities, HS kids can still work. The only wrinkles are that elementary school families would need morning childcare one day per week (although the same older siblings that watch kids in the afternoons would be home), and even though this plan doesn’t reduce instructional days, it would reduce instructional hours. I don’t know if we could still meet the minimum hours required. An extra 2 hours of sleep mid-week would really help HS kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still haven't seen anyone who supports changing the bell times respond to the fact that many high school students have after-school jobs, and many others look after their younger siblings after school. Are people saying we should just ignore the needs of these families?

Younger elementary aged siblings are not getting home until almost 4:30. There may be some who care for baby and toddler siblings after school but probably not as many as you think. Maybe someone should prioritize the health and adequate sleep of high school students for once. Why must we always prioritize the needs of adults?

School ends at 3:20 for half of the elementary schools. At my school, lots of kids are picked up by their older siblings, so it's not a question of what I think but what I see. We're not talking about the needs of adults, we're talking about the safety of younger students.

The natural solution would be for schools to provide after care, but god forbid we actually do something to make parents' lives easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Later? My kid's school doesn't start until nearly 9:30!

If we're going to push back high school, we need more buses to at least avoid needing to do two runs for elementary schools.

It is a petition for HS, but I've seen it and it does not grapple at all with any of the issues raised by the Bell Times Report. It makes a good case for the science behind teen sleep, but that doesn't answer the problems that have already been raised with making high schoolers start later. It's my opinion that MCPS won't meaningfully engage with this question until/unless someone comes up with some solutions for those barriers.

Yes, all children need sleep. In fact,all humans need sleep. If you child isn't getting enough sleep try making them go to be earlier.

They can easily get in bed earlier. What they can’t do is fall asleep earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we should operate on a 2 hour delay every Wednesday. HS students can sleep in, teachers get 2 extra hours for grading and lesson planning and meetings, older siblings can watch younger siblings in the afternoon, we don’t need any extra buses, it won’t cost the district extra money, kids can still have EC activities, HS kids can still work. The only wrinkles are that elementary school families would need morning childcare one day per week (although the same older siblings that watch kids in the afternoons would be home), and even though this plan doesn’t reduce instructional days, it would reduce instructional hours. I don’t know if we could still meet the minimum hours required. An extra 2 hours of sleep mid-week would really help HS kids.

Actually, now that I think about it, the instructional hours could be taken care of by having teachers work the exact same number of days, but we can cut out the non instructional work days for teachers at the end of the first 3 quarters because they’re getting that time back by having 2 extra non instructional work hours every week.

[Anonymous]

There's this nutty poster who starts this thread about teens and school start times about every six months. The county has been over this. There is no perfect solution. In the end they made the best possible choice and the poster just needs to deal with it.