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Schools can't really start later. Parents need to drop kids off before they start work. I guess we could have everyone start work an hour later too, but I don't

Schools can't really start later. Parents need to drop kids off before they start work. I guess we could have everyone start work an hour later too, but I don't see that happening.

WillDaSilva 5y ago
> Parents need to drop kids off [...] This is far from universal, and is a problem we should address wherever it is the case. It's bad for plenty of reasons, with one of the largest being that it prevents us from having schools operate during times that work well for children and teens.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I'm not sure how you plan to solve this. Even if a school bus came to every kids front door the parent would still need to be there to ensure the kid gets on. If both parents need to be somewhere for work the bus needs to show up early enough to give them time to commute.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Uh - no. You don’t have to be there to ensure the kid gets on. You teach your kid how to be responsible and a good person so that they get on without you having to helicopter over them for everything. What the F is wrong with Americans. Srsly.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      The reality is that enough Americans won't accept this to make it a viable solution.
    - collegeburner 5y ago
      That's how my parents did it... it's changed in the past 20 years. Stupid suburban wine moms raised this past generation to be coddled at every opportunity. I hear about parents getting in trouble for letting their children walk a mile or 2 to a park and back... or bike a few miles to a friend... ridiculous. Lots of parts of America (outside big cities) we still don't care.
    - Goronmon 5y ago
      Uh - no. You don’t have to be there to ensure the kid gets on. You teach your kid how to be responsible and a good person so that they get on without you having to helicopter over them for everything. Maybe I'm just a terrible parent, but I wouldn't trust my 5 year old to walk to her stop and get on the bus at a specific time every morning without a parent around to push her to do it.
      - bradlys 5y ago
        Yet it’s normal in Japan by 6-7. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-small-children-take-the-subway-and-run-errands-alone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-...
        Goronmon 5y ago
        That doesn't say its "normal" by 6-7. It just says that some kids are able to do it as young as that age. And the specific child in the article didn't start until 9. Plus, I would argue that there is a difference between sending a kid off to school at a given time and leaving them home alone with a specific schedule of "At 8:45 you need to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus". Which again, I'm not sure I would trust to my 5 year old to do on her own every morning. Not because she can't walk alone, but because I don't think punctuality is something she's mastered yet. And even the article admits that young kids can do that more because of "social trust than self-reliance". And I don't know how many parents are willing to rely on other adults to help out their kid if something goes wrong.
      - KptMarchewa 5y ago
        You do that when they are 5-6 and let them go when they are 7-8. We should not dictate everyone's lives by what happens at 1-2 years of life.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        So have the bus pick her up at 8:15 when parents leave for work instead of the 7am which people were complaining about.
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - deleted 5y ago
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  - seangrogg 5y ago
    What in the what? I would wake up after my dad was gone for work, grab a pop-tart or cereal, take a ~1/4 mile walk outside to the bus stop, no longer able to see my house from the suburban sprawl, and hang out with the rest of the kids at my stop for 5-15 minutes before the bus showed up. Then I eventually got a car. Don't get me wrong, if I was offered a ride (my parents, friends parents, friends with cars) I'd often take it. But ensuring I got on the bus? When the alternative was that my parents would get a phone call about me being missing? Trust that the lessons I'd get at school were far preferable to the lectures I'd get at home if I skipped class.
  - Buldak 5y ago
    Where did you go to school where it was the norm for parents to always see their kids board the bus?
jazzkingrt 5y ago
Every school I've attended opened its doors before classes started. This has other benefits like making sure kids have access to breakfast.
- deleted 5y ago
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throwaway287391 5y ago
> Parents need to drop kids off before they start work. I see a comment like this in all of these discussions and I'm always confused: did something change in the past ~15 years since I graduated from high school and school buses stopped being a thing? Where I grew up (Texas, which is generally not the most politically enthusiastic place when it comes to school funding) it was required that a school bus be available within a few minutes' walk of every student's home in the school zone. I thought this was a pretty universal part of American life based on every movie/TV show ever.
- collegeburner 5y ago
  That's one of the things we get right because so many people around the state live in rural areas where school is a very long way from where they live. Many of them live on farms or ranches where their parents need those early hours to work and can't take their kids to school that far away easily.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Many parents don't trust their 5 year to get on the bus everyday. High school can surely be moved back for areas with 100% bus availability (my district has not had buses since covid), but elementary school would be a much tougher sell.
  - throwaway287391 5y ago
    That's a fair point for kindergarteners, but by 1st or 2nd grade kids in my district walked to the bus stop on the corner all by themselves just fine. Also, my district had elementary school start the earliest (and middle/high school would start later) which for some reason is uncommon but makes a lot of sense for a whole bunch of reasons and would seem to mostly solve this problem for parents who need to walk their kindergartener to the bus stop before work.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      People have faced legal issues for letting their 6 year old safely roam in my area. That may be crazy, but it's the reality in much of the US.
Jtype 5y ago
If we started work an hour later then we would lose the extra hour in the evening that we gained by changing to DST.

Schools can't really start later. Parents need to drop kids off before they start work. I guess we could have everyone start work an hour later too, but I don't see that happening.

WillDaSilva 5y ago

> Parents need to drop kids off [...] This is far from universal, and is a problem we should address wherever it is the case. It's bad for plenty of reasons, with one of the largest being that it prevents us from having schools operate during times that work well for children and teens.

colinmhayes 5y ago
I'm not sure how you plan to solve this. Even if a school bus came to every kids front door the parent would still need to be there to ensure the kid gets on. If both parents need to be somewhere for work the bus needs to show up early enough to give them time to commute.
- bradlys 5y ago
  Uh - no. You don’t have to be there to ensure the kid gets on. You teach your kid how to be responsible and a good person so that they get on without you having to helicopter over them for everything. What the F is wrong with Americans. Srsly.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    The reality is that enough Americans won't accept this to make it a viable solution.
  - collegeburner 5y ago
    That's how my parents did it... it's changed in the past 20 years. Stupid suburban wine moms raised this past generation to be coddled at every opportunity. I hear about parents getting in trouble for letting their children walk a mile or 2 to a park and back... or bike a few miles to a friend... ridiculous. Lots of parts of America (outside big cities) we still don't care.
  - Goronmon 5y ago
    Uh - no. You don’t have to be there to ensure the kid gets on. You teach your kid how to be responsible and a good person so that they get on without you having to helicopter over them for everything. Maybe I'm just a terrible parent, but I wouldn't trust my 5 year old to walk to her stop and get on the bus at a specific time every morning without a parent around to push her to do it.
    - bradlys 5y ago
      Yet it’s normal in Japan by 6-7. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-small-children-take-the-subway-and-run-errands-alone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-...
      - Goronmon 5y ago
        That doesn't say its "normal" by 6-7. It just says that some kids are able to do it as young as that age. And the specific child in the article didn't start until 9. Plus, I would argue that there is a difference between sending a kid off to school at a given time and leaving them home alone with a specific schedule of "At 8:45 you need to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus". Which again, I'm not sure I would trust to my 5 year old to do on her own every morning. Not because she can't walk alone, but because I don't think punctuality is something she's mastered yet. And even the article admits that young kids can do that more because of "social trust than self-reliance". And I don't know how many parents are willing to rely on other adults to help out their kid if something goes wrong.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      You do that when they are 5-6 and let them go when they are 7-8. We should not dictate everyone's lives by what happens at 1-2 years of life.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      So have the bus pick her up at 8:15 when parents leave for work instead of the 7am which people were complaining about.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- seangrogg 5y ago
  What in the what? I would wake up after my dad was gone for work, grab a pop-tart or cereal, take a ~1/4 mile walk outside to the bus stop, no longer able to see my house from the suburban sprawl, and hang out with the rest of the kids at my stop for 5-15 minutes before the bus showed up. Then I eventually got a car. Don't get me wrong, if I was offered a ride (my parents, friends parents, friends with cars) I'd often take it. But ensuring I got on the bus? When the alternative was that my parents would get a phone call about me being missing? Trust that the lessons I'd get at school were far preferable to the lectures I'd get at home if I skipped class.
- Buldak 5y ago
  Where did you go to school where it was the norm for parents to always see their kids board the bus?

jazzkingrt 5y ago

Every school I've attended opened its doors before classes started. This has other benefits like making sure kids have access to breakfast.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

throwaway287391 5y ago

> Parents need to drop kids off before they start work. I see a comment like this in all of these discussions and I'm always confused: did something change in the past ~15 years since I graduated from high school and school buses stopped being a thing? Where I grew up (Texas, which is generally not the most politically enthusiastic place when it comes to school funding) it was required that a school bus be available within a few minutes' walk of every student's home in the school zone. I thought this was a pretty universal part of American life based on every movie/TV show ever.

collegeburner 5y ago
That's one of the things we get right because so many people around the state live in rural areas where school is a very long way from where they live. Many of them live on farms or ranches where their parents need those early hours to work and can't take their kids to school that far away easily.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Many parents don't trust their 5 year to get on the bus everyday. High school can surely be moved back for areas with 100% bus availability (my district has not had buses since covid), but elementary school would be a much tougher sell.
- throwaway287391 5y ago
  That's a fair point for kindergarteners, but by 1st or 2nd grade kids in my district walked to the bus stop on the corner all by themselves just fine. Also, my district had elementary school start the earliest (and middle/high school would start later) which for some reason is uncommon but makes a lot of sense for a whole bunch of reasons and would seem to mostly solve this problem for parents who need to walk their kindergartener to the bus stop before work.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    People have faced legal issues for letting their 6 year old safely roam in my area. That may be crazy, but it's the reality in much of the US.

Jtype 5y ago

If we started work an hour later then we would lose the extra hour in the evening that we gained by changing to DST.