I blame the fat cats at Beverly Farms ES - they pushed for this, from what I have heard.

Anonymous wrote:I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

Well, they spend a hell of a lot of time and money on feeding and helping kids from disadvantaged backgrounds through free lunches and food/presents during the holidays. I don't begrudge that but this late start time is very hard on all families.

At my child's Tier 2 school last year, with a 9:15 start, there were many many kids dropped off at 8:45 by parents who had to scramble into work. The school has a holding area between a set of doors. No one was supposed to be there before 8:50 but many flouted that rule and had to leave their kids there, unattended. It's going to be even worse and earlier this coming year.

We make a decent living but the extra $400 a month we now have to pay for before care, on top of aftercare, is really going to hurt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

Actually that's not entirely true. You would expect most normal schools to start around 8 or 8.30 in order for parents to get to work after. That's what happens all around the rest of the USA. Its only happening somewhere like MoCo where they know there are enough parents with money to buy in extra care.

Except, of course, for where it doesn't.

Fewer than 1 in 5 middle and high schools in the U.S. began the school day at the recommended 8:30 AM start time or later during the 2011-2012 school year, according to data published today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Too-early start times can keep students from getting the sleep they need for health, safety, and academic success, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

CDC and U.S. Department of Education researchers reviewed data from the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey of nearly 40,000 public middle, high, and combined schools to determine school start times.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0806-school-sleep.html

WHY ARE YOU QUOTING THIS? IT IS ABOUT MIDDLE SCHOOL- CAN YOU NOT READ?

Anonymous wrote:

Except, of course, for where it doesn't.

Except, of course, your citation relates to middle and high schools starting too early, whereas the PP and other DCUMs are unhappy - justifiably so - that our ELEMENTARY schools start so late.

Then what's the contention, exactly? That nobody starts elementary schools as late as MCPS? If you know of data about that, could you link to it, please?

Also, can you please propose a solution for MCPS whereby

1. middle schools and high schools start later
2. elementary schools don't start too early (that's also bad: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/edu-a0037195.pdf)
3. it doesn't cost MCPS a whole lot of money in extra buses and bus drivers

I think that everybody would be very interested in such a solution.

Except, of course, for where it doesn't.

Except, of course, your citation relates to middle and high schools starting too early, whereas the PP and other DCUMs are unhappy - justifiably so - that our ELEMENTARY schools start so late.

Anonymous wrote:I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

I think that the ability of parents to make child care arrangements is relevant to the good of the kids, don't you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

Actually that's not entirely true. You would expect most normal schools to start around 8 or 8.30 in order for parents to get to work after. That's what happens all around the rest of the USA. Its only happening somewhere like MoCo where they know there are enough parents with money to buy in extra care.

Except, of course, for where it doesn't.

Fewer than 1 in 5 middle and high schools in the U.S. began the school day at the recommended 8:30 AM start time or later during the 2011-2012 school year, according to data published today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Too-early start times can keep students from getting the sleep they need for health, safety, and academic success, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

CDC and U.S. Department of Education researchers reviewed data from the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey of nearly 40,000 public middle, high, and combined schools to determine school start times.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0806-school-sleep.html

Anonymous wrote:I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

Actually that's not entirely true. You would expect most normal schools to start around 8 or 8.30 in order for parents to get to work after. That's what happens all around the rest of the USA. Its only happening somewhere like MoCo where they know there are enough parents with money to buy in extra care.

I'm kind of shocked. This is an excellent, free school system. It is not their job to worry about your commute. Their sole focus needs to be the good of the kids. Your child care arrangements are your own problem.

RH and NCC and CC are a lot more diverse than the rest of the schools in the BCC cluster.

I'm a RHPS/NCC parent. What I don't get is why CC and BE and Somerset are all Tier 1 schools (in the ritzier neighborhoods) and NCC and RHPS and Rock Creek Forest got the Tier 2 times. So not fair. We all are working professionals. I guess I need to look into KAH and do early morning since her bus is coming at 8:40 am and we are 25 minutes later than last year. We're going to get stuck spending a few thousand dollars extra in early morning care and the kids are getting out late so after school activities are going to be harder. Urgh

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(Only in Montgomery County would a school that is 30% non-white (Whitman HS) be considered lily-white.)

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf

How does this relate to start times?

See the first paragraph of the post at 9:18.

Anonymous wrote:(Only in Montgomery County would a school that is 30% non-white (Whitman HS) be considered lily-white.)

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf

How does this relate to start times?

(Only in Montgomery County would a school that is 30% non-white (Whitman HS) be considered lily-white.)

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf

Yikes -- sorry! I wasn't lecturing you at all -- I said I agree it was bad news for anyone that needs to get into work by 9:30. I am absolutely the last person that would say anything is easy for working parents. We've totally re-shuffled our child care situation to deal with the earlier start times. You said the NIH neighborhood, and I know the commuting around there pretty well, so I was trying to be helpful. I don't really think of the RH are as the NIH neighborhood, so I misunderstood where you are.

That's the point, PP - I don't live in the RH neighborhood. I live east of Connecticut in North Chevy Chase, prime dumping ground for NIH traffic headed to the Beltway. These neighborhoods are zoned for Rosemary Hills. Don't get me wrong - RHPS is a wonderful school. But it is already a logistical hassle for those of us whose kids are only zoned for that school because the county decided three decades ago that one small part of Chevy Chase/Bethesda would be desegregated. (Somehow this concern doesn't extend to the rest of lily white Bethesda.) Commuter traffic, mostly from NIH, already makes doing pickups from afterschool activities into an hour-long expedition for just a couple of miles of travel.

Now the logistical hassle becomes more difficult because of the later bell times - too late for public transportation routes nearby, too late for many of us to get to our offices on time. It's not just about the commute downtown - a single mom in our neighborhood needs to be at her job in Bethesda at 9am. It was doable without paying for before-care under the previous system; not anymore.

I said in my first post, I'm glad that someone is thinking about bell times for middle schoolers and HS students. It's an absolutely reasonable issue. But the BOE opted for the 20 minute delay not because it was the best option for everyone but because it was the only no-cost option. Except it does impose a cost - on working parents - without bringing much benefit to the kids it is supposed to help.