HS start times - what happened?

[Anonymous]

^^ If you lived in Great Falls and had to be out in the pitch dark and snow with flashlights to get your Langley high school kids safely on a bus at 6:00 a.m. so they could be in their seats by 7:20 a.m. you would not write this.

[Anonymous]

I was just trying to figure out if there is a time when they say a bus pickup time is too early, I want to avoid my 11year old daughter walking in the dark at all costs. I think anything before 7 is the wrong thing to do, but we'd be looking at something like a 6:20 bus pickup for middle school if option 3 goes through. I'm really concerned about FCPS decisions lately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But MS is only 2 years. And it has the advantage of not moving the ES bell schedules at all.

Our elementary's student times are 8:20-3:00. Perfect IMO. They could go in a little earlier, but I wouldn't want it to start any later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UGH. Why is it ok to stick MS students with the crappy early time? If it's not a good time for HS students, it's not good for MS students either.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just trying to figure out if there is a time when they say a bus pickup time is too early, I want to avoid my 11year old daughter walking in the dark at all costs. I think anything before 7 is the wrong thing to do, but we'd be looking at something like a 6:20 bus pickup for middle school if option 3 goes through. I'm really concerned about FCPS decisions lately.

Opt 3 has no MS starting before 7:20 and they are going to try to tweak that to be closer to 7:30 or later. Why would your child be on a bus at 6:20? Perhaps you are currently dealing with a "first tier" situation where kids are delivered 35 min before school starts because the bus makes a second run.....that would be eliminated under all options . No kids would get to school more than 10 min before the bell.

(I watched the entire board mtg video.)

[Anonymous]

If you lived in Great Falls and had to be out in the pitch dark and snow with flashlights to get your Langley high school kids safely on a bus at 6:00 a.m. so they could be in their seats by 7:20 a.m. you would not write this.

So, you must not have kids in middle school--because they will be the ones in Great Falls getting on the bus at 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just trying to figure out if there is a time when they say a bus pickup time is too early, I want to avoid my 11year old daughter walking in the dark at all costs. I think anything before 7 is the wrong thing to do, but we'd be looking at something like a 6:20 bus pickup for middle school if option 3 goes through. I'm really concerned about FCPS decisions lately.

Opt 3 has no MS starting before 7:20 and they are going to try to tweak that to be closer to 7:30 or later. Why would your child be on a bus at 6:20? Perhaps you are currently dealing with a "first tier" situation where kids are delivered 35 min before school starts because the bus makes a second run.....that would be eliminated under all options . No kids would get to school more than 10 min before the bell.

(I watched the entire board mtg video.)

Thanks for pointing out the boldface part. I interpreted the School Board discussion as this is Option 3 With More To Come to hopefully have later MS start times (as budget conditions allow).

[Anonymous]

All this money spent so high schoolers can go to school at 8 instead of 7:25? Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Middle school kids require even more sleep than high schoolers, but Sandy Evans supports Option 3, which reduces sleep for middle school kids.

Why does Sandy Evans hate middle school kids?

[Anonymous]

SLEEP has never cared about the sleep needs of anyone other than older teens. Years ago FCPS almost changed the start times and got as far as publishing a list of new start times for all schools. Our ES was going to switch from a 9:15 start to a 7:10 start, which would have had my then kindergartener needed to be in bed by 6pm every day to get the sleep he needed. Luckily they dropped the whole thing until now, but I still can't see how they determine that 13 and 14 year olds don't matter.

[Anonymous]

Whiners

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All this money spent so high schoolers can go to school at 8 instead of 7:25? Ridiculous.

Watch the video. Listen for the part about first tier....it means the new schedule would be a 1 hr difference even though it looks like a 30 or 40 min. Difference.....and under option 3, the elem students wouldnt have any change at all. I think that was a big part of it being the preferred choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But MS is only 2 years. And it has the advantage of not moving the ES bell schedules at all.

Our MS is one of the 4 that currently already starts early (7:20) and it does truly suck. But I'll trade 2 years of that if it means my kid can have 4 years of HS at a more reasonable time!

Not all MS in the county are 2 years only. The Old Cluster 3 is grades 6-8 for MS. Not that anyone here cares about us Cluster 3 people probably.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter attended Frost, which had a 7:20 start time under the old system. So all you folks whining about 7:20 MS start times don't care about kids at Frost I gather. Had she not gotten into TJ we probably would have left FCPS altogether.

Congrats to Sandy and Phyllis and everyone else who has worked so hard over the years - change IS possible, if people persist!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But MS is only 2 years. And it has the advantage of not moving the ES bell schedules at all.

Our MS is one of the 4 that currently already starts early (7:20) and it does truly suck. But I'll trade 2 years of that if it means my kid can have 4 years of HS at a more reasonable time!

Not all MS in the county are 2 years only. The Old Cluster 3 is grades 6-8 for MS. Not that anyone here cares about us Cluster 3 people probably.

Exactly! I love how on DCUM they act like all of the inside the beltway schools (with three years of middle school) don't even exist.