36 ms·

This is a great move by California. My family engaged with school district officials a few times on why we started school so early, when there is so much resear

This is a great move by California. My family engaged with school district officials a few times on why we started school so early, when there is so much research showing it is harmful for teenager. The answer we got was... buses and sports. And little kids. Basically, the district needed to make sure that elementary school kids weren't walking to school or waiting for buses in the dark, so they had to start around 9a at the earliest. Since they needed to share the buses, they couldn't start all grade levels at the same time. The reason why they went 725a, 750a, and 9a instead of something like 8a, 9a, 930a is that if you started Jr high or High school at 930a, they wouldn't start after school activities till 4p and would go after dark in the winter. This always seemed an insane argument to me, but was said multiple times. My home district looks to still use the same bell schedule too.

skissane 7y ago
As a non-American I find this interesting, that school start times would be decided based on availability of buses. Here in Australia, most schools don't own their own buses (I see a few expensive private schools do). Buses are provided by private bus companies and/or by a government-owned bus company (depending on who provides regular non-school bus services in the area). The bus fare is either paid by the student's parents, or else by the government, depending on factors like how long it would take the student to walk, how old the student is, whether they have a disability, etc. The government subsidises buses for all school students equally, irrespective of whether they attend private schools or government-run schools. I don't know how exactly schools decide their start times, but I doubt bus availability would have much to do with it. Bus availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools.
- dint 7y ago
  In America, most areas (even many cities) lack public bus infrastructure with the reliability or capacity to serve this role. However, in cities that do, busing is often outsourced to public transit - each student in my city gets a bus pass with their student ID.
- topkai22 7y ago
  School bussing in the United States has an incredibly complex legal history related to desegration and civil rights. Moving to a fee for use system is probably legally impossible(or at least very difficult) in most of the United States. There are also reasonably strong public sector unions representing school bus drivers, who in many areas have gotten various job requirements codified that make outsourcing difficult. Even with all that, my school district runs the bus system fairly efficiently-around a $2.25/trip with all overhead included.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    No buses in California or NYC for the most part kids take public transportation.
    - topkai22 7y ago
      That doesn't sound right. A quick check on LA Unified's web site says they operate ~1300 buses, while all of LA's bus network operates 2600 buses. While only 42000 of 734,641 students are taking the district provided buses, I'd bet a huge portion of the remaining aren't taking public transit, but are walking, are being driven by a parent, or driving themselves. While I don't have data, I'd be willing to bet that areas like the Inland Empire, Bakersfield, Fresno, or Sacramento have much higher portions of their population busing as well, probably near the 50% mark for most of the US.
      - sjg007 7y ago
        California doesn't require it except in special cases and due to impacted budgets it is diminishing. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-school-bus-service-vanishing_n_946860 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-school-bus-service...
- ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
  >Bus availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools. If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public or private, that's just how it works.
  - shakna 7y ago
    > If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public or private, that's just how it works. In Australia, it is also normal that all 3 classes of students also start at around the same time. (8:45-9:00am). This doesn't seem to be a problem that the public transit system seems incapable of handling.
    - ducttapecrown 7y ago
      Australia has less people in it than California.
      - skissane 7y ago
        I don't see how that is relevant. Yes, given that the US has a bigger population (roughly 13 times bigger), it must spend more money in total on bus trips to/from school than Australia does; but, it also has a much larger economy (roughly 14 times bigger) with which to pay for those bus trips.
    - irrational 7y ago
      What is a public transit system? What a quaint idea. Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA (especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter. I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles of the high school.

skissane 7y ago

As a non-American I find this interesting, that school start times would be decided based on availability of buses. Here in Australia, most schools don't own their own buses (I see a few expensive private schools do). Buses are provided by private bus companies and/or by a government-owned bus company (depending on who provides regular non-school bus services in the area). The bus fare is either paid by the student's parents, or else by the government, depending on factors like how long it would take the student to walk, how old the student is, whether they have a disability, etc. The government subsidises buses for all school students equally, irrespective of whether they attend private schools or government-run schools. I don't know how exactly schools decide their start times, but I doubt bus availability would have much to do with it. Bus availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools.

dint 7y ago
In America, most areas (even many cities) lack public bus infrastructure with the reliability or capacity to serve this role. However, in cities that do, busing is often outsourced to public transit - each student in my city gets a bus pass with their student ID.
topkai22 7y ago
School bussing in the United States has an incredibly complex legal history related to desegration and civil rights. Moving to a fee for use system is probably legally impossible(or at least very difficult) in most of the United States. There are also reasonably strong public sector unions representing school bus drivers, who in many areas have gotten various job requirements codified that make outsourcing difficult. Even with all that, my school district runs the bus system fairly efficiently-around a $2.25/trip with all overhead included.
- sjg007 7y ago
  No buses in California or NYC for the most part kids take public transportation.
  - topkai22 7y ago
    That doesn't sound right. A quick check on LA Unified's web site says they operate ~1300 buses, while all of LA's bus network operates 2600 buses. While only 42000 of 734,641 students are taking the district provided buses, I'd bet a huge portion of the remaining aren't taking public transit, but are walking, are being driven by a parent, or driving themselves. While I don't have data, I'd be willing to bet that areas like the Inland Empire, Bakersfield, Fresno, or Sacramento have much higher portions of their population busing as well, probably near the 50% mark for most of the US.
    - sjg007 7y ago
      California doesn't require it except in special cases and due to impacted budgets it is diminishing. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-school-bus-service-vanishing_n_946860 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-school-bus-service...
ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
>Bus availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools. If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public or private, that's just how it works.
- shakna 7y ago
  > If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public or private, that's just how it works. In Australia, it is also normal that all 3 classes of students also start at around the same time. (8:45-9:00am). This doesn't seem to be a problem that the public transit system seems incapable of handling.
  - ducttapecrown 7y ago
    Australia has less people in it than California.
    - skissane 7y ago
      I don't see how that is relevant. Yes, given that the US has a bigger population (roughly 13 times bigger), it must spend more money in total on bus trips to/from school than Australia does; but, it also has a much larger economy (roughly 14 times bigger) with which to pay for those bus trips.
  - irrational 7y ago
    What is a public transit system? What a quaint idea. Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA (especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter. I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles of the high school.