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Post by Linda on May 13, 2023 20:17:45 GMT
It's funny not a single person on this thread has mentioned the overwhelming argument against making high school start times later and elementary start times earlier that we get every time our district tries to adjust things. And it is they want high school students home in time to babysit elementary school siblings. This issue has been raised by parents at our district for years upon years. Parents cannot afford after school childcare for their young kids. I have to wonder if this is not mentioned in this thread because people live in more affluent school districts than we do? Also there isn't all this parent drop off either. Kids ride the bus or walk depending on where they live. There is no overwhelming parent pick up line like some of you describe in threads here. My kids always rode the bus other than when we lived a block from the middle school, the kids walked, and in high school when Chloe had a car she drove senior year. I'm definitely not in an affluent school district - ALL of our schools qualify for free breakfast/lunch for ALL students (community qualifying not individual application). All of our elementary schools do offer an after school program -$12/day or $55/wk ($45 for subsequent child from same family) and we also don't have a minimum age to stay home law here so I suspect many children are latchkey kids at ages younger than I would have wanted for mine. BUT there are very few families that I know who have high schoolers AND elementary schoolers - we were very unusual in having that kind of an age gap (my youngest didn't start K until AFTER my oldest graduated and the middle was a 4th grader then). parent drop-off - pretty much anyone who CAN drop off their kids, does because the bus rides are so very long and the morning pickup is so very early...esp. for elementary school. Mine typically rode/ride the bus in part because I don't drive and DH isn't a morning person and is almost always late to work anyway...he'll drive if there's a specific need (like Friday, DD was bringing in homemade lemon tart for french class so he drove her) or if she misses her bus and he'll do pickup when she needs to stay after. And in years past, when we didn't live in the community he worked in it wasn't practical. Same for when DS was in early high school before we moved - there wasn't a local high school and the one he went to was a completely different direction than DH's job.
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AllieC
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,087
Jul 4, 2014 6:57:02 GMT
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Post by AllieC on May 13, 2023 22:47:00 GMT
OMG I cannot imagine some of these start times! I’ve never seen a school in Australia start earlier than 8:30. Most are between 8:30- 9 and finish 3-3:30pm.
What time do they finish if they start at 7ish?
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Post by crazy4scraps on May 13, 2023 23:27:51 GMT
It's funny not a single person on this thread has mentioned the overwhelming argument against making high school start times later and elementary start times earlier that we get every time our district tries to adjust things. And it is they want high school students home in time to babysit elementary school siblings. This issue has been raised by parents at our district for years upon years. Parents cannot afford after school childcare for their young kids. I have to wonder if this is not mentioned in this thread because people live in more affluent school districts than we do? Also there isn't all this parent drop off either. Kids ride the bus or walk depending on where they live. There is no overwhelming parent pick up line like some of you describe in threads here. My kids always rode the bus other than when we lived a block from the middle school, the kids walked, and in high school when Chloe had a car she drove senior year. I’m pretty sure that most if not all of the public elementary schools here have before and after school care that families can opt into and it’s pretty reasonably priced. Parents have to drop off and pick up for that though, obviously. I haven’t ever heard families mention needing older kids to watch younger ones as a reason to not flip the schedule. The usual reason for not wanting to switch is because of after school sports schedules. I think more of the older kids are involved in organized sports and activities vs. working a part time job after school where I am. The drop off lines here are insane. Plenty of kids still ride the bus, but the lines for drop off in the morning both at the elementary and middle school that my kid attends/ attended literally snake down the street for blocks! Kids more than a half mile away or who live across the highway all qualify for bussing.
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Post by 950nancy on May 14, 2023 3:37:51 GMT
It's funny not a single person on this thread has mentioned the overwhelming argument against making high school start times later and elementary start times earlier that we get every time our district tries to adjust things. And it is they want high school students home in time to babysit elementary school siblings. This issue has been raised by parents at our district for years upon years. Parents cannot afford after school childcare for their young kids. I have to wonder if this is not mentioned in this thread because people live in more affluent school districts than we do? Also there isn't all this parent drop off either. Kids ride the bus or walk depending on where they live. There is no overwhelming parent pick up line like some of you describe in threads here. My kids always rode the bus other than when we lived a block from the middle school, the kids walked, and in high school when Chloe had a car she drove senior year. I am guessing not. The district I taught in had mostly 2 parent working homes (or lots of single parents). I had kids who would miss school 1-2 times a week to babysit during school. We did have rather inexpensive before and after school care (to me anyway, probably not to a parent who is barely getting by). This was definitely a concern in our district, and probably one of the reasons we don't have a later start for the high school. For us, the main complaint was always after school activities would run too late for kids to get home eat, do any homework and see family.
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