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School Start Times

Gonz

Gonz

Ultra Runner
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
4,842
Location
St. Paul
I don't know why I would think a bunch of cigar enthusiasts would know alot about this, but what the hell...

Our school district is considering changing the elementary school start time from 8:50 to 8:00am, and the end time from 3:20 to 2:30. So they would start 50 minutes earlier. None of the other school's start times will change. I believe the reason they want to do this is to save money on the cost of school transportation.

I'm not sure I'm cool with this, partly because it will cause havoc in people's schedules that work and need to pick up their kids from school. Case in point, a good friend is a high school teacher and his wife works 9-5. High school is finished by 2:30ish so he can finish his day and get home in time to pick up his son from school, hence avoiding after-school care ($). With the new schedule change there's no way he'll get to school in time to pick up his son.

My other big concern is the affect earlier start times have on kids' school performance. But I'm falling short trying to find data to support my position. The only articles and research I've found so far is strictly dealing with teenagers and high school start times.

Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight into early start times and the affect on elementary age kids' performance?
 
You want a book or an research article. I will tell you this though. The performances actually improves, as long as the kids are getting around 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Let me know, I work at a library I can dig and search something for you.

David
 
I guess I'd prefer articles or research. Mostly I just want to be sure the school district isn't saving money at the expense of quality of education. I doubt any school district would knowingly do that, but I guess everything has a price.
 
We've always started early in SC. Even when I was in school over 20 years ago. Currently in my area Elementary School starts at 7:50 am and High School at 8:15 am.

Of course SC is ranked near the bottom in high school graduation rates nearly every year. I don't know if the start time is the problem though.
 
I started 1-8th grade, everyday at 8am. ran til 3.
High school was 7:40 - 2:45

Of course, it was all private and we had to jockey around with the Public High School bus system, but I turned out fine.
 
Yep, in elementary I had school from 8:00 to 3:00, also a privet school system, but we had our own buses. I don't think cost was an issue at that point.

I can tell you though, that in High School, when I was expected to be at school before 7:00, I gave up, and ended up skipping either the first half of the day or the last half. My grades actually went up because I spent more time studying. I turned out better than I expected, and I'm doing really well in college (UNH).

Go figure.
 
Those were the times I started when I was in school (public school K-6, HS was a little earlier). Our district had the highest number of National Merit Scholarship Finalists in the midwest back then. We had a great school district with great teachers. I don't think start time is as important as many think as far as the kids go (as long as it isn't ridiculous, of course). They're pretty adaptable.
 
robbiex0r said:
I started 1-8th grade, everyday at 8am. ran til 3.
High school was 7:40 - 2:45

Of course, it was all private and we had to jockey around with the Public High School bus system, but I turned out fine.
Click to expand...
:0
 
My kids do the 8:00 - 2:30 thing. Actually, I think its like 8:10 - 2:40 or something like that. They have a latchkey program so when their grandmas can't pick them up, they do that for a couple of hours. They enjoy it because they get to spend more time with the other kids, and where they live they don't have a lot of friends close by anyways.

I'm not sure how the changing of time from 8:50 to 8 AM negatively affects most working familys schedules though. Or 3:30 to 2:30 pm. Not trying to argue with you here Gonz, just trying to figure it out. I can see how it will affect parents that work within the school system as you point out your friend in this case. But from my perspective, everyone I know has to be to work by 8 or before, and doesn't get to leave work until 5 or after. Even a 9-5'r will only have to adjust to get their kids to school earlier, but if they use the bus system, nothing changes other then when the kids have to be up in the morning.

I guess the biggest cost would be the number of hours in a daycare or latchkey program. I think the latchkey her is only like $6 per hour or something like that. Anytime I have to pay more for something...well that does suck. :(
 
Thanks for the article. It seems like there's no real evidence that the change in start time will affect school performance for the elementary aged kids, so I don't think I have any issue with them changing it.

We'll see if it goes through!
 
What is the point of 8:00 school? Are we conditioning them for the 8-5 rat race already?
 
My 10 year old boy starts school at 8:05 and ends the day at 2:30. I really haven't noticed any problems grade-wise from him having to get started that early, but then again, school times have been like this for quite a while here in the south.
 
I have to imagine that children are so malleable and adaptive that an earlier start would have little or no negative impact on them. My 9 year old son starts at 8:30 and ends at 2:50 everyday. This year he has voluntarily started going to school at least a half hour early everyday. His grades haven't faltered a bit and he still maintains high honors.
 
When I was in elementary school, we started at 7:30 AM. I don't know what effect start times have on school performance, but I turned out freakin' brilliant.
 
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