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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Lady's statement is ridiculous. There are many MS teachers who are not licensed to teach HS, and there are many HS teachers who would rather chop their arm off than work with MS students. No one is just going to flip to another level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Lady's statement is ridiculous. There are many MS teachers who are not licensed to teach HS, and there are many HS teachers who would rather chop their arm off than work with MS students. No one is just going to flip to another level.

I really expected that she would have more common sense.

It may not be easy, but sleep can be adjusted with some effort. Finding staff for a school? Not so much.

[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 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.

Don’t they start that early in Loudoun? It always seemed crazy to me too. I have 2 in ES (4th and K) and I’m not looking forward to the early MS schedule especially for bus riders, but it’s only two years. It’s 4 full years of the 7:20-2:30 bell schedule at the HS in the city where I grew up, and MS is even earlier - 7:05-2:15.

[Anonymous]

It's rarely really dark at 7 a.m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's rarely really dark at 7 a.m.

I drive to something that starts at 7:15 am a couple days a week. I sit behind an MS bus if I don’t get through a certain intersection by 7 am. It’s pretty darn dark in the winter months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's rarely really dark at 7 a.m.

7 am sunrises start here in late September, last through DST ending in early November, then start again in late November through mid February. That’s a significant chunk of the school year.

[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._

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.

Teen brains are undergoing tremendous growth and development and sleep deprivation during there years is one of the biggest drivers for in chronic mental health conditions.

Middle schoolers, 12-14 yrs old, shouldn’t be treated with less concern than HS students, developmentally they need as much or in some cases more sleep. And with 6am wake times they aren’t getting it.

[Anonymous]

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

No one is owed a job, so quit, and find something else. There are a lot of unemployed Fed. govt workers who couild fill the gaps. Plus In a year or two, as the economy worsens, there will be plenty of laid off workers eager and recent college grads eager for the cheap benefits and security of a steady paycheck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

No one is owed a job, so quit, and find something else. There are a lot of unemployed Fed. govt workers who couild fill the gaps. Plus In a year or two, as the economy worsens, there will be plenty of laid off workers eager and recent college grads eager for the cheap benefits and security of a steady paycheck.

Sure. Put in lots of unqualified people. Anyone can teach.

[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 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.

The only options they gave as viable last year were moving everybody back by 30 minutes which would put the late start elementary kids as getting out too late, and swapping middle school with some of the elementary schools. Middle school teachers were pretty opposed to that one because they would be the 9:15-4:15 schedule.

It's also possible they're going to go with the push everyone back 30 minutes idea and will need extensive care in the mornings because parents cannot be waiting until 9:25 for their kid's bus to come. Either way, my guess is the pivot from SACC to Beyond the Bell is to head off a surge in care needs from whatever nonsense they're about to pull with elementary school start times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There are different certifications between middle school and high school teachers.

Middle school is only 6th-8th certification.
Secondary is 9th-12th and requires specific subject matter certifications. FCPS can't just move teachers around between levels without paying to train and recertification them.

It is set up in Virginia code.

How on earth does a school board representative not know this???


And whoaaa, is the school board moving high school to the early time slot?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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._

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.

Teen brains are undergoing tremendous growth and development and sleep deprivation during there years is one of the biggest drivers for in chronic mental health conditions.

Middle schoolers, 12-14 yrs old, shouldn’t be treated with less concern than HS students, developmentally they need as much or in some cases more sleep. And with 6am wake times they aren’t getting it.

Your middle schooler is still going to just as unpleasant yo be around if she starts school at 7AM or 8AM.

The only things that can fix that problem are 100% in your hands, either take away her phone, or wait patiently until she turns 15 and her hormones start to settle.

Changing start times won't make an ounce of difference.

[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._

I've been saying this from the beginning. All this fuss about middle schoolers needing more sleep while ignoring the high schoolers whose grades actually matter and who, developmentally, probably need more sleep than middle schoolers. But for some reason the high schoolers are untouchable. It's okay for middle schoolers to get more sleep in the morning but have a nightmarish evening every day as they get home at 530, rush to eat, get homework done, and get to activities but it's not okay for high schoolers. It makes zero sense.

If you're really going to say this is all about sleep needs, you need to do elementary first, then middle, then high school. But they won't do that. Middle school is like the red headed step child here who just gets shoved wherever and are told to suck it up. If we're going to have to "suck it up" then I'd rather do that for two years at 730 than two years at 930.

Also, how dumb is a 930 start for middle when two years later you have to switch to 8am? That's an instant loss of 90 minutes of sleep...that one thing you're claiming they all so desperately need.
+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:

Anonymous wrote:It's rarely really dark at 7 a.m.

7 am sunrises start here in late September, last through DST ending in early November, then start again in late November through mid February. That’s a significant chunk of the school year.

PP said "really" dark. If you look, there are whole named categories of morning "twilight" before sunrise. I'm not weighing in either way on whether that should count as dark or not, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There are different certifications between middle school and high school teachers.

Middle school is only 6th-8th certification.
Secondary is 9th-12th and requires specific subject matter certifications. FCPS can't just move teachers around between levels without paying to train and recertification them.

It is set up in Virginia code.

How on earth does a school board representative not know this???


And whoaaa, is the school board moving high school to the early time slot?!?

Watching the meeting, she did not know this. But when she announced to the board that it was easy during the trial schools to move teachers around, at least one other board member (can't remember which one), said, essentially, that it's good to know teachers won't be an issue because they can just move to another school or another grade if they don't like how start times get changed.

It was pretty crazy. Talk about widespread disruption...