Calif. Peas - Is new school start time a drag for you too?

We just moved out of CA. But the school our kids went to didn't switch to 8:30 and I have friends in other districts that still have other start times (9am).

Our new school is a K-8 and we are supposed to drop all kids in the family off at the earliest start time for the family and pick up at the latest pick up. My 6th grader technically starts at 7:45, but they have been encouraging them to get there closer to 7:30 and she doesn't get out till 3:15. It makes my 1st grader's day really long.

Our county (possibly all of CO, but I am not sure) will move to a later start time and a standardized school day length across the county next year. Our kids have at least 30+ more minutes a day than some of the other schools around us. 7:45 is way too early for me! We had a hard enough time with 8:25 last year. So I will be thrilled if it moves later. Last year I could get up and work out before taking the kids, but I am not bumping to 5am to be able to do that! Also, this new school doesn't have hot lunch. So after 2+ years of not having to pack lunch, I am now helping kids with 4 lunches in the morning.

My kids are now 22 and 25. However, we had the staggered start times with high school starting at 7:30 and elementary not starting until 9 for some of their K-12 years.

I can't imagine trying to get all the kids to school at the same time for parents plus the traffic for staff/everyone else. I thought they staggered it for busing (although my kids didn't have busing offered).

Your district has chosen to do this. 

"Under the new law, high schools are banned from starting the day before 8:30 a.m. Middle schools are banned from starting before 8 a.m." 

Districts can have different start times for schools as long as they don't start earlier than the times for middle schools and for high schools.  In San Diego Unified, high schools will start at different times between 8:35and 9:05 AM.

Nope, LOVE it!

I wish it was the set time for dd's freshman and sophomore years. And half of Jr year. Senior year our district implemented it 2 years before the deadline and we saw lots of improvement.

Today is late start day so ds went at 9:15. Rest if the week is 8:30.

Our morning are so much more relaxed. Ds can take his time, stim, eat, play, chill.

I notice the kids who arrive are more energetic and happy. No more 7:30am walking teen zombies.

I’m not in California but our schools are staggered, but younger kids start earlier then middle and high school. That seems to make more sense with sleep and work routines, etc. I wonder why your schools didn’t do that? Staggered start times also makes traffic better (although our school offers busing for all who want it, no matter of distance from the school). There are still a lot of people who bring their kids to school and it can be a nightmare.

That would be a drag trying to get kids to school all at the same time. We have staggered times at our school district. The main reason was to save on buses as they could have the buses pick up the high schoolers for a 7:30 start time, then go back and do the elementary kids for a 9:00 start time, leaving middle with the middle time start of 8:15.
However, several years back, they decided with high schoolers participating in sports and other extracurricular activities, often taking up quite of bit of evening time, leaving little time for homework, they would change the start times around so that high schoolers had the later start time. I believe elementary is 7:45, (gives a parent time to drop off and get to work) middle is 8:15 and highschool is 8:45. They had some kids speak of the later time on the local news the other day and they said they were thrilled with the later start time.

My son is in 9th and doesn't get out of school until 3:45, starts at 8:30, 7 classes. From what I have seen is that a lot of kids take zero period to get out early. My neighbor's son is changing is scheduled so that he gets out at lunch. So at least at our HS there are ways for the kids to manipulate their schedule way more than I was able to at that age.

We have 4 HSs in our district and they each decide their own bell schedules, same with the 4 intermediate schools and the 20+ elementary schools.

I forgot to add that elementary starts at 8am, high school at 8:30am and middle school at 8:45am. High school is the only one that changed.

Lot of kids in my area do not take a bus to school. You have to live more than 2 miles away from the school. Also, there are no buses to the high schools in this school district. There are school buses for kids with special needs too.

Growing up, there were empty metro buses that were used to pick up the junior high kids. They would wait outside school, pick up kids (who still had to pay the normal fare), then go along their normal routes. In high school, we didn’t even have that. We all jammed up at a bus stop, and some buses would not stop for us. 🤬

There have been recent studies though that say  teens tend to have “night owl” tendencies, and they have different sleep patterns than adults. They get tired later in the evening and it takes them longer to get going in the mornings. I think that is why there has been this push to start school later. I wish we had started school after 8. 😁

Our school district only buses a very limited number of students- mainly special Ed but even that has been more limited in recent years and they have gone to having as many services as possible at the local elem school vs bussing to a few specific schools.