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For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not kee

For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.

shoo 7y ago
Most substantive changes leave some fraction of stakeholders strictly worse off than before.
Dylan16807 7y ago
It's a change between years, and students moving to high school are already facing the exact same changes. The disparity can't be a non-starter because it already existed. Those early hours exist. Someone has to take them (without doubling the bus fleet size). And it's better for the students if they have the early hours in elementary and not in high school.
- elcomet 7y ago
  Well yeah but when you choose a school, you choose it based on those criterias. They cannot just change the schedule like this
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    It sounded like the hours were relatively consistent over the whole system. It wouldn't really affect school choice. But fine, if this change is somehow egregious compared to other ones, give a 5 year warning. The schedule benefits their kids, with a net zero change in the convenience of starting hours. What a shortsighted way to complain.
    - cabaalis 7y ago
      > What a shortsighted way to complain. This is not how to build concensus for your argument. I recently moved due to concerns outside my control, and the school time changed from 8:30am to 7:15am for my 6-year-old. This is manageable, but not a minor change at all. These types of changes are very significant for everyone in the region.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        > This is not how to build concensus for your argument. Sure, I'm not trying to convince the population being affected with that. Here's how I would say it: "Your kids are going through 12 years of education. This change to the entire system will make it easier for them to learn, and to be smarter adults with better focusing habits. For some people the hours are tougher right now, I'm sorry, but it's not like those hours came out of nowhere. Your students were going to have school at those hours eventually. We've only changed which years." It's not about how hard the change is. It's that a few years of early school starts are inevitable, so it's a fair trade.
- yardstick 7y ago
  Rather than penalise subsets of people with early starts, I would rather everyone pay marginally more in taxes for more buses. Also what if your family has both teenagers and preteens? In my family we drove, so the schedule was based on when my parents had to go to work. I’d often arrive at school when the library opened or just before, which is a good hour before when classes started. Then again, my school experience wasn’t in the US, and schools started 8:30am / 8:45am consistently across the city.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    > Also what if your family has both teenagers and preteens? "When I was a kid" preteens and teenagers were expected to be able to get to the bus stop on their own; But maybe that's just because both of my parents worked and left before the bus came.
deskamess 7y ago
Wait... I thought they were going to later start times? The article indicated that studies showed start time before 8am were not helpful.
- jefftk 7y ago
  The studies showed that early start times for teenagers were a problem, but not for elementary schoolers. The schools had previously (and still do) started teenagers very early and elementary students later, and this proposal swapped them.

For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.

shoo 7y ago

Most substantive changes leave some fraction of stakeholders strictly worse off than before.

Dylan16807 7y ago

It's a change between years, and students moving to high school are already facing the exact same changes. The disparity can't be a non-starter because it already existed. Those early hours exist. Someone has to take them (without doubling the bus fleet size). And it's better for the students if they have the early hours in elementary and not in high school.

elcomet 7y ago
Well yeah but when you choose a school, you choose it based on those criterias. They cannot just change the schedule like this
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  It sounded like the hours were relatively consistent over the whole system. It wouldn't really affect school choice. But fine, if this change is somehow egregious compared to other ones, give a 5 year warning. The schedule benefits their kids, with a net zero change in the convenience of starting hours. What a shortsighted way to complain.
  - cabaalis 7y ago
    > What a shortsighted way to complain. This is not how to build concensus for your argument. I recently moved due to concerns outside my control, and the school time changed from 8:30am to 7:15am for my 6-year-old. This is manageable, but not a minor change at all. These types of changes are very significant for everyone in the region.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      > This is not how to build concensus for your argument. Sure, I'm not trying to convince the population being affected with that. Here's how I would say it: "Your kids are going through 12 years of education. This change to the entire system will make it easier for them to learn, and to be smarter adults with better focusing habits. For some people the hours are tougher right now, I'm sorry, but it's not like those hours came out of nowhere. Your students were going to have school at those hours eventually. We've only changed which years." It's not about how hard the change is. It's that a few years of early school starts are inevitable, so it's a fair trade.
yardstick 7y ago
Rather than penalise subsets of people with early starts, I would rather everyone pay marginally more in taxes for more buses. Also what if your family has both teenagers and preteens? In my family we drove, so the schedule was based on when my parents had to go to work. I’d often arrive at school when the library opened or just before, which is a good hour before when classes started. Then again, my school experience wasn’t in the US, and schools started 8:30am / 8:45am consistently across the city.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  > Also what if your family has both teenagers and preteens? "When I was a kid" preteens and teenagers were expected to be able to get to the bus stop on their own; But maybe that's just because both of my parents worked and left before the bus came.

deskamess 7y ago

Wait... I thought they were going to later start times? The article indicated that studies showed start time before 8am were not helpful.

jefftk 7y ago
The studies showed that early start times for teenagers were a problem, but not for elementary schoolers. The schools had previously (and still do) started teenagers very early and elementary students later, and this proposal swapped them.