Middle School start times

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideal, to me, is to leave ES start times where they are and have all middle schools join the high school start time, like the secondary school middle school students do. Of course, this seems in possible in terms of bus availability, bus driver availability, and budget. So, I say just leave it. I have a 9th grader who did fine at an early start middle school (he actually liked the afternoon down time before evening sports started up) and one who will start middle next year. I just don't think it's worth all the upheaval to try to change the middle school start times. Certainly not at the expense of making a ridiculous elementary schedule, which would last for 7 years of a student's life!

Agree. And I have a 7th grader and 9th grader so ES times will not impact us at all, but I still recognize it is ridiculous. Early MS start was/is really hard on my kids, but it is two years. Two years. I'd rather a crappy schedule for two years than 4 or 7!

30 min later isn’t that crappy for anyone.

It is for the elementary students will get home after 5:00pm. The current late start schedule is already really hard on my kids. We bought our house before we had children and it never occurred to me at that time that we should be checking the start and end times for elementary school. I just assumed that kids got out at 3:30 like they seem to do everywhere else in the country, but nope, 4:15, which means my child gets home at 4:45 (we are the last bus stop, which makes it even worse). I mean, great, it works out well for me and my work schedule, but it does NOT work out for my children who are a mess by the time they get home (even my 4th grader who has been doing this for years). Adding a half hour to that will be a disaster.

The latest dismissal time in option E was actually 4:35 pm I believe. No one would go until 4:45 pm.

My kids have a 30 minute ride home. With a 4:35 dismissal, they would be home after 5:00.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideal, to me, is to leave ES start times where they are and have all middle schools join the high school start time, like the secondary school middle school students do. Of course, this seems in possible in terms of bus availability, bus driver availability, and budget. So, I say just leave it. I have a 9th grader who did fine at an early start middle school (he actually liked the afternoon down time before evening sports started up) and one who will start middle next year. I just don't think it's worth all the upheaval to try to change the middle school start times. Certainly not at the expense of making a ridiculous elementary schedule, which would last for 7 years of a student's life!

Agree. And I have a 7th grader and 9th grader so ES times will not impact us at all, but I still recognize it is ridiculous. Early MS start was/is really hard on my kids, but it is two years. Two years. I'd rather a crappy schedule for two years than 4 or 7!

30 min later isn’t that crappy for anyone.

It is for the elementary students will get home after 5:00pm. The current late start schedule is already really hard on my kids. We bought our house before we had children and it never occurred to me at that time that we should be checking the start and end times for elementary school. I just assumed that kids got out at 3:30 like they seem to do everywhere else in the country, but nope, 4:15, which means my child gets home at 4:45 (we are the last bus stop, which makes it even worse). I mean, great, it works out well for me and my work schedule, but it does NOT work out for my children who are a mess by the time they get home (even my 4th grader who has been doing this for years). Adding a half hour to that will be a disaster.

The latest dismissal time in option E was actually 4:35 pm I believe. No one would go until 4:45 pm.

She said her kid gets home at 4:45 currently on the bus. So 30 mins later means her kids will be getting home at 5:15ish.

It wouldn’t be 30 minutes though for a school that already gets out at 4:15 pm as that would then mean it would release at 4:45 pm. And no school would get out that late under option E. The latest would be 4:35 pm which is only 20 minutes later than her current school release time of 4:15. So her child would actually be getting home at 5:05. I’d choose kiss n ride then bc half an hour on the bus is too long anyway.

[Anonymous]

The "Ease of Communication" argument for Option E is the stupidest !@#$% reason I can imagine to drive decision-making... seriously, you can't send people emails saying "Next year little Timmy's school will start at 8:00am" or whatever? Who cares what time other schools are starting or how much they are shifting? This is a solution in search of a problem.

What matters is the logistics of transportation, before/after-care, and aligning with the research on sleep patterns for adolescents.

Gonna make a decision that affects millions of kids over the span of a couple decades based upon your ability to write an email or newsletter, and the potential inconvenience that will be solved in a single day if some parent is so checked out that they don't realize the school time changed? Seriously? The fact this bullet point even made it into the deck is disturbing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "Ease of Communication" argument for Option E is the stupidest !@#$% reason I can imagine to drive decision-making... seriously, you can't send people emails saying "Next year little Timmy's school will start at 8:00am" or whatever? Who cares what time other schools are starting or how much they are shifting? This is a solution in search of a problem.

What matters is the logistics of transportation, before/after-care, and aligning with the research on sleep patterns for adolescents.

Perhaps it just means since it was only a shift of 30 minutes it would be easy for parents to hear and accept?

Gonna make a decision that affects millions of kids over the span of a couple decades based upon your ability to write an email or newsletter, and the potential inconvenience that will be solved in a single day if some parent is so checked out that they don't realize the school time changed? Seriously? The fact this bullet point even made it into the deck is disturbing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "Ease of Communication" argument for Option E is the stupidest !@#$% reason I can imagine to drive decision-making... seriously, you can't send people emails saying "Next year little Timmy's school will start at 8:00am" or whatever? Who cares what time other schools are starting or how much they are shifting? This is a solution in search of a problem.

What matters is the logistics of transportation, before/after-care, and aligning with the research on sleep patterns for adolescents.

Perhaps it just means since it was only a shift of 30 minutes it would be easy for parents to hear and accept?

Gonna make a decision that affects millions of kids over the span of a couple decades based upon your ability to write an email or newsletter, and the potential inconvenience that will be solved in a single day if some parent is so checked out that they don't realize the school time changed? Seriously? The fact this bullet point even made it into the deck is disturbing.

My kid's ES starts at 9:20 right now and would move to 9:50 a.m. under this plan. Trust me, I understand what this means and I'm not happy about it. I've already emailed my school board member and the At-Large members. You don't get to sacrifice thousands of ES school kids so your MS kid can get up a little later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideal, to me, is to leave ES start times where they are and have all middle schools join the high school start time, like the secondary school middle school students do. Of course, this seems in possible in terms of bus availability, bus driver availability, and budget. So, I say just leave it. I have a 9th grader who did fine at an early start middle school (he actually liked the afternoon down time before evening sports started up) and one who will start middle next year. I just don't think it's worth all the upheaval to try to change the middle school start times. Certainly not at the expense of making a ridiculous elementary schedule, which would last for 7 years of a student's life!

Agree. And I have a 7th grader and 9th grader so ES times will not impact us at all, but I still recognize it is ridiculous. Early MS start was/is really hard on my kids, but it is two years. Two years. I'd rather a crappy schedule for two years than 4 or 7!

30 min later isn’t that crappy for anyone.

It is for the elementary students will get home after 5:00pm. The current late start schedule is already really hard on my kids. We bought our house before we had children and it never occurred to me at that time that we should be checking the start and end times for elementary school. I just assumed that kids got out at 3:30 like they seem to do everywhere else in the country, but nope, 4:15, which means my child gets home at 4:45 (we are the last bus stop, which makes it even worse). I mean, great, it works out well for me and my work schedule, but it does NOT work out for my children who are a mess by the time they get home (even my 4th grader who has been doing this for years). Adding a half hour to that will be a disaster.

The latest dismissal time in option E was actually 4:35 pm I believe. No one would go until 4:45 pm.

My kids have a 30 minute ride home. With a 4:35 dismissal, they would be home after 5:00.

maybe they should review your schools boundaries

[Anonymous]

Posted this in ES thread as well- anything old is new again. Here is thread from 2014 with mostly all the same comments:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/412003.page

And here is FCPS history of start times from 1990s to present:

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2024-07/FCPS%20-%20Middle%20School%20Start%20Times%20-%20Background%20Document.pdf

[Anonymous]

No point changing anything. The no-cost options are all worse than the status quo.

[Anonymous]

Did they decide anything at yesterday’s meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did they decide anything at yesterday’s meeting?

Pretty much that nothing is happening next year. Possibly a pilot but there is too many unanswered questions to decide and boundary adjustments could also help with transportation times.

[Anonymous]

Middle school is two years, elementary is K-6! This should be no brainer! They should leave the current times alone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did they decide anything at yesterday’s meeting?

Pretty much that nothing is happening next year. Possibly a pilot but there is too many unanswered questions to decide and boundary adjustments could also help with transportation times.

Bummer. What a let down.

[Anonymous]

I do not agree with moving ES start times. We already have a 9:20 start. If my DD does a club after school she doesn’t get out till 5:30. Delaying the day by a half hour she would not be out till almost 6PM. Leaves no time for swim team or other activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did they decide anything at yesterday’s meeting?

Pretty much that nothing is happening next year. Possibly a pilot but there is too many unanswered questions to decide and boundary adjustments could also help with transportation times.

Bummer. What a let down.

They actually had a good discussion and raised a lot of good points. They all recognized that all options affect all grade levels and the data collected was lacking. So I am not surprised they are putting it off till boundary adjustments. Also they mentioned some new technology that will help with routing that won’t be available until mid next school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideal, to me, is to leave ES start times where they are and have all middle schools join the high school start time, like the secondary school middle school students do. Of course, this seems in possible in terms of bus availability, bus driver availability, and budget. So, I say just leave it. I have a 9th grader who did fine at an early start middle school (he actually liked the afternoon down time before evening sports started up) and one who will start middle next year. I just don't think it's worth all the upheaval to try to change the middle school start times. Certainly not at the expense of making a ridiculous elementary schedule, which would last for 7 years of a student's life!

Agree. And I have a 7th grader and 9th grader so ES times will not impact us at all, but I still recognize it is ridiculous. Early MS start was/is really hard on my kids, but it is two years. Two years. I'd rather a crappy schedule for two years than 4 or 7!

30 min later isn’t that crappy for anyone.

It is for the elementary students will get home after 5:00pm. The current late start schedule is already really hard on my kids. We bought our house before we had children and it never occurred to me at that time that we should be checking the start and end times for elementary school. I just assumed that kids got out at 3:30 like they seem to do everywhere else in the country, but nope, 4:15, which means my child gets home at 4:45 (we are the last bus stop, which makes it even worse). I mean, great, it works out well for me and my work schedule, but it does NOT work out for my children who are a mess by the time they get home (even my 4th grader who has been doing this for years). Adding a half hour to that will be a disaster.

The latest dismissal time in option E was actually 4:35 pm I believe. No one would go until 4:45 pm.

She said her kid gets home at 4:45 currently on the bus. So 30 mins later means her kids will be getting home at 5:15ish.

It wouldn’t be 30 minutes though for a school that already gets out at 4:15 pm as that would then mean it would release at 4:45 pm. And no school would get out that late under option E. The latest would be 4:35 pm which is only 20 minutes later than her current school release time of 4:15. So her child would actually be getting home at 5:05. I’d choose kiss n ride then bc half an hour on the bus is too long anyway.

I'm the person you're referring to. 5:05pm is still after 5:00 and that's too late. Not everyone can do kiss and ride, PP. Laughing that you think 30 mins is too long. Do you even have children in FCPS?