Reply to Richard Montgomery High School teacher complains about chronic absenteeism

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think this problem is at all limited to first period, but I do think having such early start times might contribute to overall truancy because for parents who struggle to get their kids to school on time (or kids who struggle to get there on their own) it starts the day off on the wrong foot.

I've worked a lot with kids who have school avoidance issues. One thing you discover is that for a kid who is has a lot of reasons for not wanting to be at school (the most common are social issues or learning problems that make school a stressful and unwelcoming place for them), how the day starts matters. You can turn around a kid who is very school avoidant with a good homeroom teacher who starts the day off on a good note, for instance. It doesn't change the rest of the day at all but it will help that kid get through the door and in the seat, and once he's there, he is way less likely to leave.

If, on the other hand, there are major obstacles to the very first part of the day, the avoidance is triggered first thing in the morning, and it's hard to get that kid to go in even after that initial obstacle is over (i.e. to get the kid to go to 2nd period even if it's a class they like okay and it doesn't have the issues that homeroom does).

So having an early start time and a culture of absenteeism in homerooms, and then the school just tacitly overlooking that absenteeism, is going to impact the full day attendance because for any kid who has reasons for wanting to avoid school, you've just provided them with multiple reasons not to show up for the start of school, which is going to roll into the rest of the day for these kids. You need to find a way to get them sitting in that homeroom seat to start the day.

I think pushing start times back 30 minutes would help a lot. I know there are issues with buses and coordinating with elementary and middle school start times. But that doesn't change the fact that the early start is likely contributing to overall truancy.[/quote]

I can buy the argument that early start times are negative in the ways you say, but I don't buy that pushing the start time back 30 minutes would help. Kids will inevitably just stay up later.

So then you get to the question what level of start time would help and align with adolescent development. My guess is 1-1.5 hours, but I can't how the system could function with a start time that is delayed for high schools.[/quote]

Between activities, sports and homework, if schools started an hour later, they'd have to stay up an hour later to fit everything in or get up even earlier to do sports before school which defeats the purpose.  On game nights, they may not get home till 10 and then still have homework, so that pushes games back to what 11?[/quote]
Yes, that’s the whole point. For the majority of teenagers, both starting and ending their day later better aligns with their circadian rhythms. The idea is to fit their schedule to their optimal sleep patterns instead of fighting biology by trying to fit their sleep into a schedule that prioritizes the convenience of adults.[/quote]

You know what helps more, being engaged in things they enjoy.  My kids should not be going to bed at 12-1 pm because you refuse to enforce bedtime.  Mine should not give up their activities and sports because you refuse to parent.  [/quote]
They don’t need to give up any activity or get less sleep. You just shift everything by a modest amount of time. There are still 24 hours in a day. They’ll get home one hour later, go to bed one hour later, get up in the morning one hour later. It’s no different that when our clocks change by an hour to switch from standard time to daylight savings time and back. If you enforce a bedtime, there should be zero issues.[/quote]

So, if my kids have an activity from 7-9, that shifts one hour to 8-10 or it stays the same but then they have to come home and study so they go to bed an hour later so there is zero benefit except to you not having to enforce household rules.  Some kids are out till 8-9-10 regularly even with school activities.  They wouldn’t go to bed at the same time, they’d go to bed at least an hour later.

Why is it we can get our kids to school and you cannot?[/quote]
It doesn’t matter that your kids would go to bed an hour later because they would  get to sleep in an hour later. Same number of hours in the day, same activities, same amount of sleep.

The benefit to changing high school start time is that the majority of teens cannot fall asleep early even if they are tired. A later school start time and later bedtime better aligns with teens’ natural biological rhythms. We can maintain the status quo and teens can go through life feeling chronically tired, just like night shift workers do, but that’s not great for their health.

My kids are there when school starts at 7:45, but that’s not what’s best for them. However, it really doesn’t matter what’s best for my individual family or your individual family; what matters is what is most beneficial to either the majority of students or the students with the fewest resources. Maybe that’s a schedule that aligns to natural sleep patterns. Maybe that’s the status quo so they can provide childcare for younger siblings. Our demographics have changed since MCPS studied this more than a decade ago and there are lots of changes to school programs and boundaries coming in the near future. The last study will soon be totally obsolete.[/quote]

[b]No, they wouldn't be sleeping in an hour later. [/b] They would be going to bed even later, therefore losing sleep as they'd stretch the day.

If it’s not best for them put them in private with a later start time.  Problem solved.  You want whats best for you and your family but it doesn't work for other families and the cost.[/quote]
Why not? [/quote]

Because everything is pushed back an hour or more…so they go to bed an hour later, get up an hour later which means the same sleep.  [/quote]

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