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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]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. [b]The county should focus on making ALL kids get to school between the hours of 8:00-3:45pm[/b]. 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.[/quote]

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.

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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.

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