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Our school district just spent the last year trying to convince parents we should shuffle around start times to make high school later and elementary school ear
by zaroth 9y ago
Our school district just spent the last year trying to convince parents we should shuffle around start times to make high school later and elementary school earlier.
It was a complete clusterfuck. Both teacher and parents alike at both the elementary and the high schools all had a million reasons why it couldn’t possibly work. Since there are a limited number of buses which are shared, you can’t move one start time without moving the other.
It came up at every school event, sports practice, kids party, to the point where I would just walk away when people starting bitching about it one way or another.
The biggest issue was we had a new superintendent who wanted to “start a dialogue” about the start times rather than actually make a policy change. It took up hundreds of hours in PTO, Administrative, and Town Hall meetings and of course ended up in absolutely no change in the end. Everyone’s opinion of course had to be heard, whether it was a longer commute that a teacher would have, or then not having time to drop off their own child before getting to class, or impacting afternoon sports, or the something about the bus route, or... Of course none of the debate actually addressed if students would possible learn better from it.
I was so glad when they finally sent out the email saying they were dropping it just so that I wouldn’t have to hear the constant bickering.
It was like an engineering team with no lead and a non-technical manager arguing over what DBMS to use where no decision could be made until everyone agreed we had the “right” solution!
- candu 9y agoA cynical explanation here would be: those in charge wanted the appearance of having considered these changes without the headache / political risk of actually changing them.
- zaroth 9y agoAbsolutely correct. The superintendent didn’t have the clout necessary to pull it off. What I think she underestimated was the sheer volume of discussion which would ensure which basically made it impossible to get any other policy changes done last year.
- robterrell 9y agoIt's happening where I live too. It's amazing how quickly the discussion moves past "what's best for students" and into the "it's annoying to me personally" and "when I was a kid, we suffered" conversations.
- RHSeeger 9y agoTo be fair, "I got fired from my job because I couldn't get there on time anymore because school starts too late" isn't particularly good for the children of the people getting fired either.
- mbrameld 9y agoOne person's issue with work is worth compromising the learning of all the other children? That's not exactly what I'd call fair.
- ryandrake 9y agoIt’s not just one person. As amazing as it sounds, lot of people are expected to be at work on time.
- sotojuan 9y agoNot everyone is a programmer in the Valley or East Coast that can just Slack their manager "will be an hour late today because X!" and everything is fine. For the vast majority of people, even white collar employees, not being at work at 9 a few times may mean termination.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- burfog 9y agoIt seems that such people can't possibly deal with legal problems, medical problems, car problems... It's not as if you can schedule such things. Well, you could add more problems on a schedule I guess! You can't avoid the bad surprises.
- Goronmon 9y agoOf course none of the debate actually addressed if students would possible learn better from it. Is that important if there is no way to make a different schedule work from a practical perspective?
- danharaj 9y agoRaising children is one of the fundamental processes of human society. If there really were a will, we could rearrange everything for them. But the way we treat children and teenagers is rather callous and cynical at the system level.
- watwut 9y agoIf there was a will, teenagers would be allowed to come sooner or on bike or fully by themselves. If raising children would be really considered important, caregivers needa would not be treated with "shut up and do the things the most complicated way". For that matter, calling school that starts an hour sooner then optimal "calous" is overly hyperbolic, manipulative and dramatic.
- danharaj 9y ago> For that matter, calling school that starts an hour sooner then optimal "calous" is overly hyperbolic, manipulative and dramatic. Do you know how miserable it is to be chronically sleep deprived for, like, a decade? Yes, it's callous to make someone suffer like that for the convenience of everyone else.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- watwut 9y agoYou can and should go to bed earlier. Learning to go to sleep is important part of adulthood. The debate about whethe start an hour later or sooner due to natural rhythms is completely pointless for students that don't sleep even minimal needed amount of hours. Those need to fix "hours slept" metric first.
- user5994461 9y agoMy campus had a rolling start of day, depending on the university that's attended. I don't know when it was enacted but it certainly helped with congestion in the transports in the morning and in the cafeteria for lunch. Students are autonomous though. I can imagine that school pupils are not and they cause troubles for parents.
- projektir 9y ago> Students are autonomous though. I can imagine that school pupils are not and they cause troubles for parents. We could have made school children autonomous far sooner if we wanted to.
- wambotron 9y agoThe school district my kids are in does this. High school starts 1 hour after elementary, and the buses just run the same routes twice.
- zaroth 9y agoThat’s what it is here except reversed — buses do the high school run first, and the discussion was around reversing it - like you would think it would have been from the start.