FCPS appears to be considering adding changing start time to 2026 Rezoning per Board Docs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

The county can't handle the surge in child care needs if they start sending home elementary aged kids at 2:30. Dh leaves the house at 5:30 and is barely home to meet a 4 pm bus.

And early release Wednesday being at 11:30..

Im sure all the after school camps are thrilled with how much more they’re going to charge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

As far as the bolded?

Because solving the real problem - actually educating all children by meeting them where they are at - is probably unsolvably difficult. You can get closer to better solutions with really hard work, hard work that requires hiring really good teachers and paying them accordingly. However it's clear that very few school administrators are up to that task, and when they are the politicians in charge (of any party) actively undermine them by going after the shiny political fad of the day. And that's not to mention all the other administrators going after shiny educational fads in order to bolster their resumes. After all, nobody gets a PhD by saying "My disseration is that we should keep doing the things we proved decades ago work best in education, but are not perfect, because it turns out one system can't perfectly educate all kids and every option has trade-offs, but we picked what we thought had the fewest bad trade-offs and let's keep doing it."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

The county can't handle the surge in child care needs if they start sending home elementary aged kids at 2:30. Dh leaves the house at 5:30 and is barely home to meet a 4 pm bus.

My guess is this is exactly what they're going to do and is why they're piloting their new "beyond the bell" program that has some exemptions from the county that are probably for ratios and what not. They pilot this now to work out any bugs and make people confident it works and then expand it to all elementary schools for next year so they can supervise the huge volume of kids who will need after school care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you have all gone soft. Get the kids out of bed. It has been done for decades.

Goodness knows all this hand wringing over start times has been stupid and has caused logistical headaches of our own creation.

+1

I’ve had multiple kids go through middle school and they survived high school and got into college with zero trauma from the middle school start time.

+another one

Just wait until these kids go to work.......or have an 8 a.m. class in college._

They don't enroll in the 8 AM classes. I loved teaching the 8 AM classes because they were smaller and I had more kids who wanted to learn something in the class. They were great. And I got my teaching out of the way early on so my day could be spent on research and writing.

I’m a prof too and the opposite can be just as true. The kids in the 8 am are there because they didn’t bother to register for courses when their registration window first opened up, and they got stuck with the section no one else wanted.

Either way I tend to agree with people saying kids are soft now and so are parents. No one seems to understand the concept of sucking it up and dealing with less than ideal circumstances. You all are making life too easy for your kids and trust me they crumble when they get to college. So much anxiety and self-doubt even among the high achievers.

+1 We don't teach resilience and don't allow kids to fail as they learn.

[Anonymous]

They pooh-poohed the idea that the new times would be unpopular with the teachers. Big mistake.

[Anonymous]

That meeting included a lot of throwing spaghetti against the wall.

The only good thing is that it sounds like they shut down Reid's vision and most seem to think a traditional boundaries are needed.

How in the world would Reid's suggestion of a "magnet just for Western schools" would solve overcrowding? Does that mean they would not move kids out of Chantilly?

And, what was all the talk about the permitting at Centreville? Sounds like it is not going to be expanded.

This new school needs to open as a traditional school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you have all gone soft. Get the kids out of bed. It has been done for decades.

Goodness knows all this hand wringing over start times has been stupid and has caused logistical headaches of our own creation.

+1

I’ve had multiple kids go through middle school and they survived high school and got into college with zero trauma from the middle school start time.

+another one

Just wait until these kids go to work.......or have an 8 a.m. class in college._

+1

A child's body is growing, transitioning mentally and physically, a full grown adult is essentially decaying, and getting closer to dying, which one needs more sleep?

You need to look at actual data to be informed about this question. If we are going to look at middle schoolers versus high schoolers. It’s the high schoolers who sleep needs should be prioritized. This is the age where a really important neurodevelopmental process called synaptic pruning is occurring, along with maturation of the prefrontal cortex. It’s not as simple as saying, “kids are growing thus they need more sleep”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I am PP. These are the things the county should do.

Change transportation mileage. There are so many kids who CAN walk/bike to school but are assigned a bus. In fact, many kids choose to bike to the middle school in order to sleep later. I can think of many kids who take a bus who can walk SAFELY cause they are just over the threshold.

Transportation should be opted in. We hear reports of over filled busses and 1/2 empty busses. People should be forced to sign up for transportation.

Make routes accessible. Routes are not necessarily assigned by proximity.

Get rid of transportation to AAP Centers. Other magnets do not offer this accommodation.


Make more depot type bus stops like TJ for middle/high school routes.

These are all things that can be used in problem solving before even looking at money.

Also, there are some ES starting earlier than the norm (Brookfield ES is one). So even within ES the hours are 8-9:20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

The county can't handle the surge in child care needs if they start sending home elementary aged kids at 2:30. Dh leaves the house at 5:30 and is barely home to meet a 4 pm bus.

My guess is this is exactly what they're going to do and is why they're piloting their new "beyond the bell" program that has some exemptions from the county that are probably for ratios and what not. They pilot this now to work out any bugs and make people confident it works and then expand it to all elementary schools for next year so they can supervise the huge volume of kids who will need after school care.

You really think they’ll have elementary schoolers getting on buses at 7 AM? That just seems crazy given that it’s still dark out in the winter at that time. With the way my kids are spaced out, our household would be dealing with the early start time for four years in a row if they leave things as is. If they flip elementary to the early start, we would deal with it for three years. But I would be so pissed if I had a kid who was only in like first grade or younger right now and looking at six or seven years of that early start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I've posted this before. I was a first gade teacher in a school that began at 7 a.m. for one year. The kids were fine. I was fine, but too many kids were getting on the bus at dark. We went back to 8 a.m. the next year--which is optimal. Elementary kids start slowing down after lunch.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

The county can't handle the surge in child care needs if they start sending home elementary aged kids at 2:30. Dh leaves the house at 5:30 and is barely home to meet a 4 pm bus.

My guess is this is exactly what they're going to do and is why they're piloting their new "beyond the bell" program that has some exemptions from the county that are probably for ratios and what not. They pilot this now to work out any bugs and make people confident it works and then expand it to all elementary schools for next year so they can supervise the huge volume of kids who will need after school care.

You really think they’ll have elementary schoolers getting on buses at 7 AM? That just seems crazy given that it’s still dark out in the winter at that time. With the way my kids are spaced out, our household would be dealing with the early start time for four years in a row if they leave things as is. If they flip elementary to the early start, we would deal with it for three years. But I would be so pissed if I had a kid who was only in like first grade or younger right now and looking at six or seven years of that early start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you have all gone soft. Get the kids out of bed. It has been done for decades.

Goodness knows all this hand wringing over start times has been stupid and has caused logistical headaches of our own creation.

+1

I’ve had multiple kids go through middle school and they survived high school and got into college with zero trauma from the middle school start time.

+another one

Just wait until these kids go to work.......or have an 8 a.m. class in college._

+1

A child's body is growing, transitioning mentally and physically, a full grown adult is essentially decaying, and getting closer to dying, which one needs more sleep?

You need to look at actual data to be informed about this question. If we are going to look at middle schoolers versus high schoolers. It’s the high schoolers who sleep needs should be prioritized. This is the age where a really important neurodevelopmental process called synaptic pruning is occurring, along with maturation of the prefrontal cortex. It’s not as simple as saying, “kids are growing thus they need more sleep”.

Thank you for citing actual science instead of the anecdotal arguments most have posted here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a child that is new to the middle school schedule, I would like to say that it's been fine. And, it's only 2 years. Dc is already looking forward to getting to sleep in for HS

I am glad your kid think it is fine. Mine thought it was awful and grades suffered. Do we cancel each other out now?

I'm another parent who has been surprised by how well last week went - my kid went from a 9:20 start time to 7:30, a 9:00am bus to a 6:45 one and it's been smooth sailing. The most important contributor has been that my child understands why they need to go to sleep early and has been doing so. Soccer starts this week and with a late practice today, we already have a plan for coming home, having a snack, showering, and going immediately to bed. Happy to have a mature child who understands that sleep is so important, I understand that not all kids get this and a lot of them are night owls and want to stay up late.

It's the first week, he's running on the excitement of the newness of it all. And the effects of cumulative sleep depravation haven't caught up with him yet. Wait until he's walking to the bus stop, every morning, for months on end, in pitch black and the days are shorter. There is a lot of variation in the sleep needs and body clocks of kids in middle school. Lot's of these kids at this age aren't close to full blown puberty, especially boys, others are in the midst of it. Their body clocks are changing, some need more and some need less, some are wired to go to bed earlier and some later. Some on the younger size developmentally still need 12, others need 8-10. A kid who still needs 12 is an outlier and a kid who only needs 8 is an outlier, most are somewhere in the middle and they end up running a sleep deficit fairly quickly. Sleep is crucial to kids, it was odd to me that FCPS acknowledged the changing needs of HS but not middle schoolers.

There's no cumulative sleep deprivation for a child that is getting 10 hours of sleep every night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I teach at a late ES in FCPS. If they went with pushing things back, I would leave. I have been at my school forever. But, I live in another county and my commute already sucks at 4:30. I would have no time with my own kid. If they moved our ours earlier, I would be thrilled. The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm. All kids should be done by then. But, FCPS isn’t a problem solving entity. Pretty sure a bunch of teachers could look at the data and make plans that worked.

Are you willing to give up your pay increase to fund buying all the busses and hiring all the drivers this would require? That is, if we can find the bus drivers. We don't have the buses or staff to handle this, that is part of the reason why we are in this position.

My MS has always been an early riser. We were surprised that his summer wake up time shifted from 7:30 to 8 this year. He is in bed reading by 9, lights out at 9:30, and asleep most nights by 10. That gets him between 7-8 hours of sleep and he seems fine with that. His soccer practice and Scout meetings mean that he knows that he has to get homework done before his evening activity. He has a snack before soccer and dinner when he gets home, we have it ready for him when he gets back from practice. Dinner is before Scout meetings. He can choose to miss the Scout meeting if he is feeling tired but has rarely done that.

He has friends who are night owls and don't appreciate the morning wake up time but they have adjusted. Their grades are good, at least to hear their parents talk, and the kids seem happy when I see them in the evening. I think most of them appreciate being home by 3 and having a good amount of down time before they have anything in the evening.

Would they all prefer a later start time? Yes. Are they suffering with the earlier start time? No. A few will tell you that they are and a small percentage of those kids probably are. Most are fine.

I don't have a kid in ES and I think the idea of pushing ES start time back 30 minutes to get 30 more minutes of sleep for MS kids is crazy. I wouldn't have a problem with an earlier start time for ES, my kid was an early riser so it would have fit him just fine, and we had flexible work times so we could handle the shift and have someone at home. But there are two many ES in FCPS so you would need a 7:30 and 8am start time and I don't think you could then get the busses for the HS and MS kids.

I agree.

The only option that remotely makes sense is flipping the elementary and middle school schedules.

But then, you will lose all the middle school teachers who want the early schedule.

Why is fcps poking the hornets nest every single day?

The county can't handle the surge in child care needs if they start sending home elementary aged kids at 2:30. Dh leaves the house at 5:30 and is barely home to meet a 4 pm bus.

My guess is this is exactly what they're going to do and is why they're piloting their new "beyond the bell" program that has some exemptions from the county that are probably for ratios and what not. They pilot this now to work out any bugs and make people confident it works and then expand it to all elementary schools for next year so they can supervise the huge volume of kids who will need after school care.

Haven't heard of beyond the bell, and my little kid is on some long wait-lists for care. My guess is it will be as awful as the care they get on early release days ( that we have no choice but to use)...lots of screen time with older kids introducing the littles to websites they don't need to be on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They pooh-poohed the idea that the new times would be unpopular with the teachers. Big mistake.

Robin Lady said it would all be fine if teachers had enough advance notice because as needed middle school teachers would switch to teaching high school and vice versa.

Seemed weird to me, to the extent that you'd like to have (1) teacher continuity at a school; and (2) teachers who are prepared and want to teach certain subjects, as opposed to just making decisions around their own commutes and child care situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a child that is new to the middle school schedule, I would like to say that it's been fine. And, it's only 2 years. Dc is already looking forward to getting to sleep in for HS

I am glad your kid think it is fine. Mine thought it was awful and grades suffered. Do we cancel each other out now?

I'm another parent who has been surprised by how well last week went - my kid went from a 9:20 start time to 7:30, a 9:00am bus to a 6:45 one and it's been smooth sailing. The most important contributor has been that my child understands why they need to go to sleep early and has been doing so. Soccer starts this week and with a late practice today, we already have a plan for coming home, having a snack, showering, and going immediately to bed. Happy to have a mature child who understands that sleep is so important, I understand that not all kids get this and a lot of them are night owls and want to stay up late.

It's the first week, he's running on the excitement of the newness of it all. And the effects of cumulative sleep depravation haven't caught up with him yet. Wait until he's walking to the bus stop, every morning, for months on end, in pitch black and the days are shorter. There is a lot of variation in the sleep needs and body clocks of kids in middle school. Lot's of these kids at this age aren't close to full blown puberty, especially boys, others are in the midst of it. Their body clocks are changing, some need more and some need less, some are wired to go to bed earlier and some later. Some on the younger size developmentally still need 12, others need 8-10. A kid who still needs 12 is an outlier and a kid who only needs 8 is an outlier, most are somewhere in the middle and they end up running a sleep deficit fairly quickly. Sleep is crucial to kids, it was odd to me that FCPS acknowledged the changing needs of HS but not middle schoolers.

There's no cumulative sleep deprivation for a child that is getting 10 hours of sleep every night.

I agree. My ms kid is going to bed at 9ish and waking up at 6ish. That's allowing time for 9ish hours of sleep. When sports and activities get busier/ later there might be some nights that are only 8, but school doesn't start till 7:30, so dc could skip the bus and get a ride occasionally if there is a sleep deficit