Anonymous wrote:Guess what—every kindergarten parent has a kid that struggled this week. Exhausted and cranky at dinner time. It will pass. Your middle schooler will be fine. Make sure the phone is on YOUR nightstand every night. Kids adjust.

My kid and his friends never adjusted.
It’s simply too early for them. And the Kindergartners would probably be better off starting school at 7:30.

Guess what—every kindergarten parent has a kid that struggled this week. Exhausted and cranky at dinner time. It will pass. Your middle schooler will be fine. Make sure the phone is on YOUR nightstand every night. Kids adjust.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of solutions. FCPS allows parents to opt students in MS/HS for a partial day. Depending on how bad it really is, you could have them change his schedule to have a free period during the first block. You would have to drive him, but it would allow him to get more sleep.

If he has an IEP or 504, it should be even easier to get approved.

The schools are short staffed and over crowded, so they are thrilled whenever there is one less student in a class.

Do kids typically have free periods in middle school?

No, you have to request it.

And give up an elective? I’d love to give up PE. Ridiculous that kids who participate in team sports can’t opt out. DC swims 10 hrs a week and a PE class is the last thing they need.

You’re lucky - sounds like your kid will enjoy PE and it’s an easy A. My kid isn’t athletic and I’m worried. I wish he could opt out of PE!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of solutions. FCPS allows parents to opt students in MS/HS for a partial day. Depending on how bad it really is, you could have them change his schedule to have a free period during the first block. You would have to drive him, but it would allow him to get more sleep.

If he has an IEP or 504, it should be even easier to get approved.

The schools are short staffed and over crowded, so they are thrilled whenever there is one less student in a class.

Do kids typically have free periods in middle school?

No, you have to request it.

And give up an elective? I’d love to give up PE. Ridiculous that kids who participate in team sports can’t opt out. DC swims 10 hrs a week and a PE class is the last thing they need.

Can she bike to school? Or get a ride from you? That would probably give her an extra 30 minutes.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand what time you guys want school to start. Ours is at 8AM. That seems like a normal start of morning to me. Why on earth would we push that back just so teenagers can go to sports practice?!

Some elementary schools start at 9:15. It would make more sense for the older kids to go to school at that time. And it’s not that it can’t be done, because other districts are doing in. Fairfax just doesn’t want to.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand what time you guys want school to start. Ours is at 8AM. That seems like a normal start of morning to me. Why on earth would we push that back just so teenagers can go to sports practice?!

I would take 8 am and the 30 minutes extra sleep that would provide.

I don’t understand what time you guys want school to start. Ours is at 8AM. That seems like a normal start of morning to me. Why on earth would we push that back just so teenagers can go to sports practice?!

Anonymous wrote:DC gets up at 6:20 to catch 6:50 bus. She has gradually looked worse and worse every morning this week. Dark circles under eyes, red eyes, no energy. She’s doing lights out at 9pm, and I don’t know how we could do it much earlier at her age. 8 pm is a tough sell for an almost teenager. She clearly needs more than the 9ish hours, but I don’t know when she’d get that extra hour. Do they adjust or are they just tired a lot for two years? She starts her fall sport next week and it’s going to be rough.

As a HS teacher who is a night owl and has been seriously sleep deprived this week, I can’t imagine how difficult the start of school has been for your daughter who has to get up so much earlier than I do and who, as an adolescent, needs 9 hours sleep.

Is she having trouble getting to sleep - lying in bed for a long time before drifting off? I started taking melatonin chewies an hour before bedtime on Wednesday night and it seemed to help.

Maybe you can let her sleep in some days and go in late? Talk to her counselor and explain that you’re worried about health.

Anonymous wrote:Getting up early sucks, but would they really rather have a longer school day? What do they do when they get out at 2:30? Can't kids figure out how to entertain themselves anymore?

Kids are bored. Friends now live a car ride away and parents work and can’t drive them. There is no homework, so they game on the computer until sports practice at 7 or 8.

Getting up early sucks, but would they really rather have a longer school day? What do they do when they get out at 2:30? Can't kids figure out how to entertain themselves anymore?

Our 7th grader is getting up at 5:20 to be out of the house at 6:30am for the bus. Granted, that's a bit longer than necessary but both our kids need a lot of time in the AM to wake up and get functional and this is how they prefer it (over being tired / cranky / unfocused in class). I've suggested they could do most everything the night before in order to sleep more in the morning but so far, despite being tired, they want that time before school. I do not look forward to when it's dark in the morning when the bus comes!

My son used to get up at 6 to catch the bus at 6:50. He needed that time to get up and moving to function. He tried to go to bed by 10. He often would wind up napping after school (bc what else to do when you get home at 2:30?) Yeah it just sucks for everyone.

Sorry to say, but it didn’t get better for my son. It got worse. By 8th he really couldn’t fall asleep earlier no matter how hard he tried and was exhausted and cranky a lot of the time. The only good thing is that it is only two years.

It’s crazy but he actually went to bed earlier in 9th with the later wake up time. I think the anxiety of the super early wake up and bus in middle school make it even harder for him to fall asleep.

30 minutes is not long enough to get ready. It really isn't (and I think it's absolutely horrible that FCPS has this schedule).

Again, 30 minutes will not work. I've had instances where I've been w/out luggage, sleeping in a hotel, catching a flight before sunrise. Sleeping in my clothes. Nothing to do but brush my teeth and go. And still can't do it, for some reason, in 30 minutes. Just waking and rolling out of bed takes some amount of time.