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I absolutely despised 1/2 days, whether scheduled or late opening delays for weather. The kids were bat **** crazy, even the good ones, and the way our schedule was it really screwed up your plan flow (that was more late openings).
And, as mentioned, those days would turn out to be longer many times if it was a walk-in conference day. I was only half, maybe a quarter, joking about the in-service topics.
Yeah, I was going to say, ten to one odds the reason for that stupid early start time is to save money on busing. If they start HS super early, they can use the same buses to ferry the HS students, then the MS students, then the elementary students, rather than contracting additional vehicle and drivers. 7 am is way too early, but I'd suggest if a person wanted to get that changed, they'd be advised to come in with a feasible plan for working around whatever reasons the early start time was established in the first place...I doubt it was implemented on a whim, as surely none of the district employees much love reporting that early, either.
Yeah, I was going to say, ten to one odds the reason for that stupid early start time is to save money on busing. If they start HS super early, they can use the same buses to ferry the HS students, then the MS students, then the elementary students, rather than contracting additional vehicle and drivers. 7 am is way too early, but I'd suggest if a person wanted to get that changed, they'd be advised to come in with a feasible plan for working around whatever reasons the early start time was established in the first place...I doubt it was implemented on a whim, as surely none of the district employees much love reporting that early, either.
Exactly true.
This was a long-time issue where I was in northern Virginia. And what it came down to was that if you wanted all schools to start at the ideal time, you would have to double the size of the fleet of buses...and we already had the largest fleet of buses in the U.S. (not just schools...all bus fleets). $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Yeah, I was going to say, ten to one odds the reason for that stupid early start time is to save money on busing. If they start HS super early, they can use the same buses to ferry the HS students, then the MS students, then the elementary students, rather than contracting additional vehicle and drivers. 7 am is way too early, but I'd suggest if a person wanted to get that changed, they'd be advised to come in with a feasible plan for working around whatever reasons the early start time was established in the first place...I doubt it was implemented on a whim, as surely none of the district employees much love reporting that early, either.
That is only one reason. High schools have started earlier for quite some time because in high school, the kids can have jobs after school and because high school sports practices need to happen during daylight hours.
Texas high schools will NEVER change from the early start because football.
Also note - the solution is to change the start times (at least here). Elementary schools can start early (most elementary students are early risers though not all of them).
There are many, many studies that show that high school should start later. All the high schools in my area switched their HS starting times to later six to ten years ago (and even before that classes started between 7:20 and 7:30 none started as early as 7 AM). Most 1st hour classes now start around 7:45 or even 8 AM. Zero hour, usually starting around 7:15, is now devoted to homework help or extra practice or clubs and it is completely optional.
Ironically, in my area, it was teachers and administrators pushing for the later start time but it was groups of parents putting up a huge fuss against it. I'm not exactly sure why (as I taught at the elementary level) but at least some of the reason was that the later start interfered with after school jobs and afterschool sport practices, games and competitions for HS students, and sometimes meant that HS students could not get home early enough to babysit younger siblings after they got out of school.
BTW, if your daughter needs to get up at 4:30 or 5 AM to get to school by 7 AM, I wonder if she is taking too much time getting ready or if she is concentrating too much on her "hair & make-up" being perfect and her clothes being "perfect". Ask the parents of other teen girls to see when their daughters are getting up.
My daughter used to brag that she could get up 15 minutes before leaving for school and be ready to go, and her friends took 30 minutes & sometimes a little more (although they did not take showers in the morning, especially since their HS had four years of required gym class).
Good points.
Parents run schools. If many parents truly want HS to start later then get involved and it will happen. But keep in mind, that there may be issues that you, and other parents, are not aware of that are causing problems. For example, when our HS started later there was a ripple effect across all of the elementary schools & MS starting times, which greatly angered other parents, and there were huge increases in transportation costs because the buses could not be utilized as efficiently. The cost increases angered many of the retired and childless citizens in our district who kicked out/voted out some school board members who had voted for the later start times at the HS.
My school district is very academically focused and decided HS should start last, so it does. It starts at around 9-9:15 and middle school starts at around 7:40-7:50. Elementary schools start in the middle. At least with starting middle school earlier (which requires a shorter day, by law, and typically has a smaller catchment area), you don't have kids getting up quite as early. I remember when I was in HS we had the first year of early start times at 7:25 and eventually they had to have a rule in place that no buses were to come before 6am because some kids were getting picked up at 5:30. The middle school buses here seem to go between 6:30-7:15 or so.
As for half days, we had them when I was in school about once a month. I think some schools now have them twice a month, but they are usually only a couple of hours early to ensure everyone is served lunch.
My school district is very academically focused and decided HS should start last, so it does. It starts at around 9-9:15 and middle school starts at around 7:40-7:50. Elementary schools start in the middle. At least with starting middle school earlier (which requires a shorter day, by law, and typically has a smaller catchment area), you don't have kids getting up quite as early. I remember when I was in HS we had the first year of early start times at 7:25 and eventually they had to have a rule in place that no buses were to come before 6am because some kids were getting picked up at 5:30. The middle school buses here seem to go between 6:30-7:15 or so.
As for half days, we had them when I was in school about once a month. I think some schools now have them twice a month, but they are usually only a couple of hours early to ensure everyone is served lunch.
I'd be curious to know how well behaved the MS students are with the earlier start time. I used to sub middle and high school and the middle school students were always so high energy. Even the difference between 8th grade(ms) and 9th grade(hs) was very noticeable. Always wondered if part of it was just that the HS students were so tired.
In reality, at least from my experience, it started when parents kept demanding more and more parent conferences, and would expect teachers to hold those conferences outside of regular teacher hours so as not to inconvenience the parents. And as required paperwork increased due to state and federal regulations which were demanded by taxpayers to prove schools were doing a certain level of performance. Or teachers would be expected to go to inservice programs outside their regular hours, not get paid for the required program. So I guess I'd call it Parents stop screwing teachers day and take care of your own darned kid.
I agree on that. Some parents must view teachers as babysitters and nannies.
The high schools in my school district has a two hour late start once a week. Each school decides which day to hold the late start. Students can arrive at normal time and are then held in an area which is supervised. This late start day is for Professional Learning Community time. The other grade levels (elementary and middle schools) don't get that, so we lose plan time once a week for PLCs. It isn't so bad for middle school teachers since they have 90 minutes of plan a day, elementary teachers only have 50.
There are many school districts which only have four day school weeks for budgetary reasons (less busing, saving on heat/electricity). I once heard that one of the school districts is the same size of Rhode Island. Others have a four day week so that students can attend classes not available in rural schools.
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