Let teens sleep in. Save $9 BILLION

I think a later start time for middle school and high school kids is a great idea. I'm on the Space Coast of Florida and here Elementary school starts at 8am, middle school starts at 9:30am, and high school starts at 8:30am or 8:45am.

This would be amazing!

Out high school now starts at 8:40 three days a week. They have s new block schedule. It is a little hard though when the parents have to be out early for work.

The high school my oldest attended started at 8:50. I really liked that start time. The high school my middle son attends starts at 7:50, and he catches a bus at 6:30 to get there. It takes kids from three schools, 6 - 12 grade in. I think it's too early for teens who really do need more sleep.

That said, when I was in high school I participated in extra curricular that required 6 am practices 3 days a week. So I only feel a little bit bad for him.

Ds16 was just talking about this last week, wanting a later start time and saying studies have been done to support it. It won't ever happen here though for multiple reasons:

1. Tiny district, all 3 schools (elem., middle, high) are on one campus and share buses (they pick up/drop off all kids pre-K thru 12 at the same time). They can't ever find enough bus drivers as it is now, nevermind trying to find more.

2. The argument can be made for high school kids not being able to have after school jobs. I don't know how many do, but being a poor district I'd venture to say it's a valid argument.

But we start at 7:45, so not insanely early anyhow. I don't know what time bus pick up starts though.

High school here starts just before/after 8.

Wow   Did they add extra breaks? 

Originally, in the 70's, the high school students did have a later starting time. The time was changed to an earlier time was so the high school student's younger siblings would not come home to an empty house. I was not happy about this, I had been looking forward to being old enough to sleep in, but such was life back then. The reason behind the change was the amount of both parents working outside the home had increase so much. Do keep in mind, the concept of afterschool daycare had not been invented yet.

In our rural area, there is only one high school that serves many surrounding towns. HS starts at 8:00 a.m. and some of the kids that live further out get the bus at 6:30. Elementary schools start at 9:00 a.m. It must be a nightmare for those parents who drive their kids in to school because they have to be at work by a certain time. I'm glad I'm past all that. My kids always just walked to school, but then we lived in a city then and the schools were close by.

How could you change this to a 8:30-9 o'clock start time and still have sports for kids?  They often don't finish before 6 p.m. when school starts at 7:00 a.m.  Sports aren't the priority, but a lot of kids wouldn't participate in sports if they didn't get home until 7:30-8:00 each night.  I loved the fact that sports kept my kids really busy.  They came home, ate, did homework and crashed.

I've never known a sport to start in the morning.  Clubs, yes, but sports no.  With all of the physical exercise, kids would sleep through class.  Not sure how to fix it.  I don't think there is a way or they would have done it by now.  

People around here hate this as there is no way to get kids to school later as they have to work. Personally I would love an 830 vs 730 start time. I was surprised how adamant people were that they couldn't do a latter drop off.

My kids are older now, so it's not an issue. But when they were younger, there was no way we could get them on the bus at a later time. Delays were a big issue.

Of course you can always do before school care, but that would defeat the purpose of a later start time.

I'm a teacher of middle grades. The school I'm at is a K-8. We start at 7:45 and the K-3 gets out at 1:45 with the 4-8 getting out at 2:20. Our high school starts at 8:05 and gets out at 3:05.

I asked my kids about their feelings on starting later. They were all about it because it meant that their parents would let them stay up later and play on their phones and video games. They will not get any extra sleep. They'll still be tired when school starts. It's not going to be beneficial to MOST kids. AND sports will go until 10 or 11 on a school night. Jobs would be harder to get since they wouldn't be able to start work until 4 or later.

Now, for me? I'd LOVE a later start. I'm a morning person but I have to get up at 5:30 to get lunches made, showered, breakfast, etc... before I leave at 6:45. If we started at 8:30, I wouldn't have to leave until 7:30. Not that I'd sleep in since my internal alarm clock goes off at 5:45 at the absolute latest. I could get stuff done at home before having to leave. You know, important stuff like email, Facebook, chatting with my friends. LOL