New school start times survey

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 1 has the high schools starting too late. 9 am is not ok, especially when they initially said high school times wouldn’t be affected.

The earliest acceptable start time for both MS and HS is 830a. 9a is not terribly late. Could it be a smidge earlier? Sure, but not by much. And they have to find a way to make this all work with the available transportation capacity. Given that, 9a seems pretty darn reasonable.

9:00 is fine.

Nope.

Keep high school on the current schedule

Any later is too late and any earlier is too early.

+1 I would only accept 30 min later max for high school. That’s why option 2 is the only one that works.

Well 30 min later is the minimum for high school to be on the recommended schedule of no students 7th+ grade starting before 830am. I'm ok with 830am or even 9am, but 8am is objectively too early for the majority of high school students in order to maximize their academic achievement at school according to research. And that's what this is about, what's best for students academically... not what's best for their extracurriculars (which can adapt to the school schedule), not what's most convenient for parents (as if there were ever any hope of consensus on that topic), but what's best for the students themselves, from a primarily academic perspective.

Right now high school is 8:10 am (not 8 am) and most people think that’s fine. In fact, they were only considering changing start times for middle school, without affecting the high school times. That was explicitly stated by FCPS. Who said we can’t start before 8:30 am? Prism? They were hired to come up with ideas that for what FCPS wants. FCPS doesn’t want to mess with the HS schedule. But they agree 7:30 am sucks. Option 2 allows it to happen so that MS gets 8 am and HS gets 8:40 am. That’s a win for us.

No, that is a huge loss for high school.

Remember, it is not even all middle schools that start at 7:30.

All of the middle schools located at secondary schools start on the later high school schedule.

It is only the stand alone middle schools that start early.

There are 23 standalone middle schools and only 6 secondary schools.

Anyway, I have an 8th and 10th grader so I vote leave as is. All I care about right now is HS and we like 8:10 start time.

There are 3 secondary schools and at least one of them starts at 8:00

Robinson
Hayfield
South County
Lake Braddock

South County is not a secondary school any more, and hasn't been for quite a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 1 has the high schools starting too late. 9 am is not ok, especially when they initially said high school times wouldn’t be affected.

The earliest acceptable start time for both MS and HS is 830a. 9a is not terribly late. Could it be a smidge earlier? Sure, but not by much. And they have to find a way to make this all work with the available transportation capacity. Given that, 9a seems pretty darn reasonable.

9:00 is fine.

Nope.

Keep high school on the current schedule

Any later is too late and any earlier is too early.

+1 I would only accept 30 min later max for high school. That’s why option 2 is the only one that works.

Well 30 min later is the minimum for high school to be on the recommended schedule of no students 7th+ grade starting before 830am. I'm ok with 830am or even 9am, but 8am is objectively too early for the majority of high school students in order to maximize their academic achievement at school according to research. And that's what this is about, what's best for students academically... not what's best for their extracurriculars (which can adapt to the school schedule), not what's most convenient for parents (as if there were ever any hope of consensus on that topic), but what's best for the students themselves, from a primarily academic perspective.

Right now high school is 8:10 am (not 8 am) and most people think that’s fine. In fact, they were only considering changing start times for middle school, without affecting the high school times. That was explicitly stated by FCPS. Who said we can’t start before 8:30 am? Prism? They were hired to come up with ideas that for what FCPS wants. FCPS doesn’t want to mess with the HS schedule. But they agree 7:30 am sucks. Option 2 allows it to happen so that MS gets 8 am and HS gets 8:40 am. That’s a win for us.

No, that is a huge loss for high school.

Remember, it is not even all middle schools that start at 7:30.

All of the middle schools located at secondary schools start on the later high school schedule.

It is only the stand alone middle schools that start early.

There are 23 standalone middle schools and only 6 secondary schools.

Anyway, I have an 8th and 10th grader so I vote leave as is. All I care about right now is HS and we like 8:10 start time.

There are 3 secondary schools and at least one of them starts at 8:00

Robinson
Hayfield
South County
Lake Braddock

South County is not a secondary school any more, and hasn't been for quite a while.

It split into separate schools/separate buildings in 2012.

[Anonymous]

I am the one that said 6. I thought it was 3 but I looked it up and it said 6– because they were counting each as two schools, ms and hs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Option 1 has the high schools starting too late. 9 am is not ok, especially when they initially said high school times wouldn’t be affected.

The earliest acceptable start time for both MS and HS is 830a. 9a is not terribly late. Could it be a smidge earlier? Sure, but not by much. And they have to find a way to make this all work with the available transportation capacity. Given that, 9a seems pretty darn reasonable.

9:00 is fine.

Nope.

Keep high school on the current schedule

Any later is too late and any earlier is too early.

+1 I would only accept 30 min later max for high school. That’s why option 2 is the only one that works.

Well 30 min later is the minimum for high school to be on the recommended schedule of no students 7th+ grade starting before 830am. I'm ok with 830am or even 9am, but 8am is objectively too early for the majority of high school students in order to maximize their academic achievement at school according to research. And that's what this is about, what's best for students academically... not what's best for their extracurriculars (which can adapt to the school schedule), not what's most convenient for parents (as if there were ever any hope of consensus on that topic), but what's best for the students themselves, from a primarily academic perspective.

Right now high school is 8:10 am (not 8 am) and most people think that’s fine. In fact, they were only considering changing start times for middle school, without affecting the high school times. That was explicitly stated by FCPS. Who said we can’t start before 8:30 am? Prism? They were hired to come up with ideas that for what FCPS wants. FCPS doesn’t want to mess with the HS schedule. But they agree 7:30 am sucks. Option 2 allows it to happen so that MS gets 8 am and HS gets 8:40 am. That’s a win for us.

No, that is a huge loss for high school.

Remember, it is not even all middle schools that start at 7:30.

All of the middle schools located at secondary schools start on the later high school schedule.

It is only the stand alone middle schools that start early.

There are 23 standalone middle schools and only 6 secondary schools.

Anyway, I have an 8th and 10th grader so I vote leave as is. All I care about right now is HS and we like 8:10 start time.

There are 3 secondary schools and at least one of them starts at 8:00

Robinson
Hayfield
South County
Lake Braddock

South County is not a secondary school any more, and hasn't been for quite a while.

But isn't the SoCo middle school still on the high school schedule?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

It's two years. Get over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

No one is disagreeing, but middle school is 2 years while ES ranges from preschool to grade 6. There are 141 ES and only and 25 middle schools. The 9:20-4:05 schedule already sucks with young kids. There are no schools in the US that have ES kids starting school at 9:50 (almost 10:00). They should choose neither plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

No one is disagreeing, but middle school is 2 years while ES ranges from preschool to grade 6. There are 141 ES and only and 25 middle schools. The 9:20-4:05 schedule already sucks with young kids. There are no schools in the US that have ES kids starting school at 9:50 (almost 10:00). They should choose neither plan.

Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

No one is disagreeing, but middle school is 2 years while ES ranges from preschool to grade 6. There are 141 ES and only and 25 middle schools. The 9:20-4:05 schedule already sucks with young kids. There are no schools in the US that have ES kids starting school at 9:50 (almost 10:00). They should choose neither plan.

Middle school kids are a little over 10% of the student population.

Elementary is a little over half the population, and high school is close to 40% of the student population.

The 10% of middle school kids can take one for the team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they are going with option 2, as it only shifts everyone by 30 minutes.

That 30 minutes takes late start elementary schools (9:20 am right now) from late but reasonably doable to a completely unreasonable 9:50-4:35. There's no way that lower elementary kids are going to be functionally learning until 4:35 pm, especially if a lot of them are up early to be dropped at before care so their parents can make it to work.

The only reasonable option is leaving things as is.

This was brought up at our community conversation and they agreed a 9:50 start time is not good for ES, so don’t think it will be happening.

But yet a 7:30 am start time isn’t good for middle school.

No one is disagreeing, but middle school is 2 years while ES ranges from preschool to grade 6. There are 141 ES and only and 25 middle schools. The 9:20-4:05 schedule already sucks with young kids. There are no schools in the US that have ES kids starting school at 9:50 (almost 10:00). They should choose neither plan.

Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

ALL kids should be going to school between 8:00-4:00. IMO…

Option 1 would have been better is high school was left alone and middle school went from 9:20-4:05 like the current late ES goes.

[Anonymous]

Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

Thank you for finally saying this! I keep thinking, these changes just “solve” the sleep problem for grades 7 and 8 while shifting the same problem to grades 5 and 6! So dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

Thank you for finally saying this! I keep thinking, these changes just “solve” the sleep problem for grades 7 and 8 while shifting the same problem to grades 5 and 6! So dumb.

So then option 2 really is the best one. No one is harmed sleep wise. The only issue is before care for working parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

Thank you for finally saying this! I keep thinking, these changes just “solve” the sleep problem for grades 7 and 8 while shifting the same problem to grades 5 and 6! So dumb.

So then option 2 really is the best one. No one is harmed sleep wise. The only issue is before care for working parents?

NO! The main issue is the education of the elementary students. This is a terrible solution.
Ask any elementary teacher. Kids will be worn out long before school is out.

The first consideration should be how it affects the education of the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only that, but the studies that show the need for later start times for middle schoolers include 6th grade. 5th graders have almost the same effects seen.

Basically moving the elementary to the early start times would still be “harming” 2 grade levels, along with the other issues of starting elementary so early.

Thank you for finally saying this! I keep thinking, these changes just “solve” the sleep problem for grades 7 and 8 while shifting the same problem to grades 5 and 6! So dumb.

So then option 2 really is the best one. No one is harmed sleep wise. The only issue is before care for working parents?

Every parent who is claiming option 2 is better should go visit a late ES at 3:15. It is hard enough getting them to learn anything between 3:00-4:00. Add in an extra 30 mins? The hardest hour of my day is the last hour because my kids need to be doing benchmark and they are done. Neither option is acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Every parent who is claiming option 2 is better should go visit a late ES at 3:15. It is hard enough getting them to learn anything between 3:00-4:00. Add in an extra 30 mins? The hardest hour of my day is the last hour because my kids need to be doing benchmark and they are done. Neither option is acceptable.

I don't know this teacher, but I do know that every word she says is true. Late starts for elementary school is truly a terrible idea. And, while it does affect working parents in a negative manner, that is not the issue. The instruction of the children is the issue.

I taught for years--generally 8-3. After 2 p.m., young kids need easy, stress free instruction.