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Yeah, sorry. That doesn’t work in a huge percentage of areas in the US. Heat, cold, darkness, lack of infrastructure, and distance. When the high is 110 F in a

Yeah, sorry. That doesn’t work in a huge percentage of areas in the US. Heat, cold, darkness, lack of infrastructure, and distance. When the high is 110 F in a Phoenix suburb, you can’t ask the 14 year olds to skateboard 20 miles to school on a country road with no breakdown lane. Similarly, you can’t ask kids from Maine to skateboard to school in the dark on ice. Whenever this topic gets brought up, a bunch of seemingly childless city dwellers think they’re making some massive revelation suggesting that kids just get their own butts to school at a comfortable 10:30 am. It’s actually pretty simple: Both parents work. Somebody has to drive the kids to school (hard requirement — there’s no bus and a bike/skateboard is too perilous). Work starts at 9 am. School has to start earlier than that.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
That's what Americans get for building the suburbs so poorly. And Phoenix is uninhabitable, nobody lived there before AC. Let work start later too. Tell that boss he can get with the times.
naz 4y ago
What time does school finish and why isn't getting home a similar issue?
- munchenphile 4y ago
  Getting home is a big issue for a lot of families. School ends around 3 pm, but most kids do some sort of after school activity like a sport to bridge the gap until after 5 pm when a parent can come through the pickup line. Growing up, there was also just general “after-school” programs. Basically just day care for after the school day that would cost extra.
- odessacubbage 4y ago
  most schools are located near public transportation and even if there are no bus stops near the home it is generally easy enough for kids to get to their parent's office/rec center/ friend's house etc. basically you have a lot more options when everyone is no longer rushing to be at work or school
standardUser 4y ago
Where are school buses in your scenario? I grew up in a couple different sprawling suburbs and I could always just walk to the bus stop.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  As buildings closed due to shrinking enrollment, my small town school system went to picking up kids in front of their homes.
rtkwe 4y ago
House keys and a bus though could work though for 90%+ of kids even in places with extreme weather [0] and you could have pre-school programs for the 10% that can't either because their too far for bussing or can't get themselves to the bus, eg those with assorted disabilities. You're right though the school start time is tied to it's function as free daycare for children so parents can work, COVID proved that is a critical part of schooling for the modern economy. [0] Would need to provide more stops and ideally a better more consistent schedule so kids could get there just in time for the bus. Also for hot weather school picks up in the morning so even the hottest places aren't 110+ at pickup time.
mellavora 4y ago
I used to bike 7 miles to school in Minnesota, year round, back in the days when we had snow. Old "road racing" bike (skinny tires). In the winter wearing a trench coat, a dr. who scarf, and beetle-eye mirrored sunglasses so my eyes didn't freeze.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sgerenser 4y ago
  Uphill both ways, right?
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I’ve ridden skinny tires in the snow and… yeah I’d probably chance it in MN (at least Saint Paul where I actually lived through a winter, can’t speak to Minneapolis but I’d bet it’s just as passable). I’ll never do it again in Seattle, where even arterial streets have a grade unsafe for foot traffic in freezing weather conditions.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    you can't speak to Minneapolis from St. Paul? I've never been to either but Minneapolis-St. Paul is one city, isn't it? Twin Cities, Minnesota Twins and all?
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      Nope, not the same city! Twin cities yes, but different municipalities. There’s even a little burb in between.
- donthellbanme 4y ago
mjmahone17 4y ago
Phoenix area schools all are required to provide busses for junior high and high school kids that live more than 2.5 miles away. That is generally a walkable distance, even in the May and August heat. I know, as from middle school on I did exactly that (walked or biked ~2 miles to and from school in the Phoenix metro). For longer distances it’s really not a big deal to bike to school. No one needs to be dropped off by their parents, unless they live out of district and chose to go to a school other than their local one. And even in that situation, many schools open a half hour or more early, where kids can be in the library or cafeteria well before class starts.
- andreareina 4y ago
  2.5 mi is almost an hour away on foot. That target shouldn't be more than ~30 minutes which is what, 1.5 mi?
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    2.5 miles is a < 10 minute bike.
    - andreareina 4y ago
      > That is generally a walkable distance
      - brianwawok 4y ago
        It is walkable. Can you walk 2.5 miles? I can.
        RHSeeger 4y ago
        So, we're going to start school an hour later to let kids sleep in. And then make them get up at the same early time so they can walk an hour to school? And then likely get to school smelling like a pool of sweat. That sounds sub-optimal.
mostlylurks 4y ago
Cold weather and darkness are not obstacles. Here in Finland the winters are darker, colder, and longer than in the vast majority of the US, yet even elementary schoolers usually go to school by themselves, often by foot or on a bike, sometimes by taking a bus or a train. The problem that the US faces with respect to this issue is primarily caused the design of american cities (including the surrounding suburbs), which are laid out in a manner that makes the use of a car a practical necessity for getting anywhere. You wouldn't have to worry about a 20-mile country road to school out of a suburb if you instead made the sensible choice of placing services (like schools) right where they are needed, as european cities tend to do, instead of 20 miles away.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  You'd be surprised. Note that Sioux Falls, the capital of South Dakota, has substantially lower average lows in Winter than Helsinki. https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/finland/helsinki/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/finland/helsinki/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/sioux-falls/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/sioux-falls/climate Yes our car-dependent infrastructure is an issue, but it's infrastructure we've built up for the better part of a century. Changing it will be slow and gradual, and in the meantime cold weather and darkness are issues in much of the country. Also hot weather in other parts of the country (heat stroke can be a serious concern in the Southwest)
  - jds_ 4y ago
    Pierre is the capital of South Dakota - though Sioux Falls is the largest city. One statistic I've read for eastern South Dakota is that it's one of the worst states to live if you hate extreme cold and extreme heat as we have both - sometimes within a week of each other!
  - herbstein 4y ago
    Helsinki is one of the Southern-most cities of Finland situated on the edge of a large body of water. Instead, take a look at this Not Just Bikes video covering biking in Finland during winter: https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU The weather in Oulu during winter looks a lot like the weather in Sioux Falls, except there's a lot more precipitation (snow) in Oulu.
rglullis 4y ago
And then people say that they live in suburbia because it is better to raise children... And then people say that all the work they do is for the benefit of their children... And then people say that those against mandatory school attendance are crazy...
TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
There are definitely jobs that start before 09:00. My workplace starts at 06:00 or 07:00 depending on how much work is on, there are no other options.
GayforMoleman 4y ago
> That doesn’t work in a huge percentage of areas in the US. Heat, cold, darkness Lmao how do people talk like this with a straight face.
InefficientRed 4y ago
> When the high is 110 F in a Phoenix suburb, you can’t ask the 14 year olds to skateboard 20 miles to school on a country road with no breakdown lane. Similarly, you can’t ask kids from Maine to skateboard to school in the dark on ice. 80% of Americans live in urban or suburban areas [1] and the average school commute distance for high schoolers is (or, was, can't find a recent number) 6 miles [2]. FWIW, I lived a little under 5 miles from school in a non-bike-friendly suburb and managed to transport myself to and from school just fine without a car. We had 100 degree days in the summer, but we also had... summer break. Maybe one hot week in August, but nothing I would call dangerous. The "20 miles down a county road" scenario is an outlier. If that is representative of your community, then the school policies of your community (including start time) should reflect that reality. The 80+% rest of us are having a different conversation about a different place. No reason to get angry about it. > city dwellers Far more Americans live in metro areas than in nonmetro rural areas. > childless The vast majority of American children do not live in rural areas. Rural areas are, on average, old and managing to get older. > think they’re making some massive revelation suggesting that kids just get their own butts to school at a comfortable 10:30 am. The California law requires a start time no earlier than 8:30am, which is already several hours later than 10:30. When I was in high school our start time was 7am or something like that, but there were "negative hours" so you could show up as early as 6am. There was cold breakfast in the cafeteria with a staff member present, or you could go to some classrooms for tutoring (I think one per core subject). Hazy on the exacty details -- it was a long time ago -- but I do remember the doors were unlocked 1 hour before classes started and you could either hang out or get tutoring. Starting -1 hour at 7:30am gives a parent 1.5 hours to commute from school to their job by 9am. -- [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demogra... [2] https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/Travel%20To%20School.pdf https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/Travel%20To%20School.pdf
odessacubbage 4y ago
from the ages of 8 to 13 i woke up at 5:45 and did a double public bus transfer every weekday to get to the out of district rich kids school, approx 45 miles at 14 i biked along county roads to get to the hippy school, approx 14 miles. both my parents worked. i am not a city dweller. kids can absolutely get themselves to and from school and doing so at 9:00 or 10:00 will mean safer roads with less ice and less traffic. if school started at 10:00, snow days would virtually be a thing of the past. skateboards have a lower fatality & injury rate than bikes(mostly due to the inherently lower speeds involved), although they have limitations for long distance transport and offer no luggage capacity.
bigDinosaur 4y ago
Why is it that we can radically transform human society in the first place, but we simply cannot design our cities and schools and work days to just let teenagers sleep in a bit more? There's absolutely nothing immutable here and these are all problems that can be solved. Why can't workdays be vastly more flexible for parents? Why can't public transport be vastly superior to allow teenagers to get to school whenever needed? These also aren't weird, aspirational goals that have never been done before, there are plenty of places where public transport is good enough even in rural areas so that kids can actually get to school. The areas so sparsely populated that that's impossible are...not the majority, to put it mildly.
- shreyshnaccount 4y ago
  Because it's not economically beneficial, or atleast no one's made it economically beneficial yet. Because obviously teenagers wellbeing << money
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    > economically beneficial In some cases, it's more a concern of economically _viable_. Sometimes, the fact that something would cost more means it's not possible. We have teachers that have to pay for the children's school supplies out of their own pockets, because the school system doesn't get enough money.
    - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
      Which happens because schools don't matter as much to the people in charge as the military-industrial complex, it's a self fulfilling prophecy..
  - achenet 4y ago
    I disagree with this, I think it's just a force of habit, where outdated industrial era behavioral patterns keep propagating themselves because no one takes the time to rethink them. There are plenty of companies with flexible working hours, and large open-source programming projects with completely asynchronous workflows. Now yes, there are some valid reasons for a business, such as a shop or restaurant, to have certain opening hours - for most shops, being open during the day and at similar times to other shops (to increase chances that a customer who comes to buy something from one shop will be drawn into the shop next door) is ideal. However, there is no valid economic reason that I can discern for the vast majority of businesses and the school system to keep blindly imitating 19th century factories in their work hours.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chrsig 4y ago
I grew up in an incredibly rural town (population ~1200) in new england. I had to walk half a mile down a dirt road to catch a bus at 6:30am. It's often still dark out at this time -- having a later start and still having to do the walk would have actually been safer. Not that it was particularly dangerous. I was more worried about a coyote than anything else. The bus ride was an hour long. If my parents had time, they'd drive me to the end of the road and let me sit in the car, or if i was lucky drive me to school (allowing me to sleep in more) > Somebody has to drive the kids to school (hard requirement — there’s no bus and a bike/skateboard is too perilous) I don't agree with the assessment that there's no bus. If there *really* isn't, change that. In general: adjust society to make more sense. We know teens have higher sleep requirements. Meet their needs. Find solutions. Work environments can adjust, even if they don't like it. Maybe well rested teens will be less likely to shoot up the school shrug
- fsckboy 4y ago
  when I was a teen I was sent to bed at 10, had no trouble falling asleep and got plenty of sleep. I know teens like to rebel and do what they want and stay up late, but that's different than saying it's difficult for them to actually fall asleep at a reasonable hour and it seems rather drastic to rearrange everyone else's schedule to accommodate staying up late playing games and texting
  - chrsig 4y ago
    Research has found that teens need more sleep than adults. Just some quick results from a google search: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528821/ https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/teenagers-and-sleep https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/tee... https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/features/students-sleep.htm https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/features/students-sleep.h...
    - fsckboy 4y ago
      I'm well aware of the research, I'm talking about the scheduling. And more research will be produced showing that teen clocks are also offset, but it's still the case that I have all my anecdata about what it feels to be tired, to get enough sleep etc., and what it feels like to be a teen rebelling against any rules. hunter gatherer teens did not sleep late every morning, they had to get up just like everybody else, probably at the crack of dawn
kortilla 4y ago
When it’s 110 in Phoenix don’t send the kids to school because it’s summer.
bluejekyll 4y ago
“there’s no bus” Aren’t school districts required to offer busing to rural communities? That’s the way it was done in PA. Granted, that doesn’t fix the sleeping in issue since we had to catch the bus pretty early.
HWR_14 4y ago
Those kids in Phoenix and Maine should just take a school bus like half the kids in America that cannot take themselves. Phoenix suburbs aren't that sparsely populated. There are a lot of solutions that don't require school starting before 9 am. Also, while you may be correct about it affecting a huge area of the US, it doesn't affect many children in the US. Precisely because it's a problem with low density. Maybe the true simple solution is that rural children all telecommute and do teleschool.
cycomanic 4y ago
I always wonder when reading the posts about how it's impossible for kids/teenagers to get to school by themselves because of weather, are the parents happy with the type of dependent children they create? Children that have to rely on their parents to get anywhere until well into their teenager years seems like a disaster to me. How will they ever learn to become independent?
- diordiderot 4y ago
  Sadly they are happy with dependent children.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Not wanting your kid to walk 2 miles to school when the windchill is -40F isn't an independence problem; it's a safety issue.
popcube 4y ago
and this is a easier way to make sure kid had arrived school!

daniel-cussen 4y ago

That's what Americans get for building the suburbs so poorly. And Phoenix is uninhabitable, nobody lived there before AC. Let work start later too. Tell that boss he can get with the times.

naz 4y ago

What time does school finish and why isn't getting home a similar issue?

munchenphile 4y ago
Getting home is a big issue for a lot of families. School ends around 3 pm, but most kids do some sort of after school activity like a sport to bridge the gap until after 5 pm when a parent can come through the pickup line. Growing up, there was also just general “after-school” programs. Basically just day care for after the school day that would cost extra.
odessacubbage 4y ago
most schools are located near public transportation and even if there are no bus stops near the home it is generally easy enough for kids to get to their parent's office/rec center/ friend's house etc. basically you have a lot more options when everyone is no longer rushing to be at work or school

standardUser 4y ago

Where are school buses in your scenario? I grew up in a couple different sprawling suburbs and I could always just walk to the bus stop.

maxerickson 4y ago
As buildings closed due to shrinking enrollment, my small town school system went to picking up kids in front of their homes.

rtkwe 4y ago

House keys and a bus though could work though for 90%+ of kids even in places with extreme weather [0] and you could have pre-school programs for the 10% that can't either because their too far for bussing or can't get themselves to the bus, eg those with assorted disabilities. You're right though the school start time is tied to it's function as free daycare for children so parents can work, COVID proved that is a critical part of schooling for the modern economy. [0] Would need to provide more stops and ideally a better more consistent schedule so kids could get there just in time for the bus. Also for hot weather school picks up in the morning so even the hottest places aren't 110+ at pickup time.

mellavora 4y ago

I used to bike 7 miles to school in Minnesota, year round, back in the days when we had snow. Old "road racing" bike (skinny tires). In the winter wearing a trench coat, a dr. who scarf, and beetle-eye mirrored sunglasses so my eyes didn't freeze.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sgerenser 4y ago
Uphill both ways, right?
eyelidlessness 4y ago
I’ve ridden skinny tires in the snow and… yeah I’d probably chance it in MN (at least Saint Paul where I actually lived through a winter, can’t speak to Minneapolis but I’d bet it’s just as passable). I’ll never do it again in Seattle, where even arterial streets have a grade unsafe for foot traffic in freezing weather conditions.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  you can't speak to Minneapolis from St. Paul? I've never been to either but Minneapolis-St. Paul is one city, isn't it? Twin Cities, Minnesota Twins and all?
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    Nope, not the same city! Twin cities yes, but different municipalities. There’s even a little burb in between.
donthellbanme 4y ago

mjmahone17 4y ago

Phoenix area schools all are required to provide busses for junior high and high school kids that live more than 2.5 miles away. That is generally a walkable distance, even in the May and August heat. I know, as from middle school on I did exactly that (walked or biked ~2 miles to and from school in the Phoenix metro). For longer distances it’s really not a big deal to bike to school. No one needs to be dropped off by their parents, unless they live out of district and chose to go to a school other than their local one. And even in that situation, many schools open a half hour or more early, where kids can be in the library or cafeteria well before class starts.

andreareina 4y ago
2.5 mi is almost an hour away on foot. That target shouldn't be more than ~30 minutes which is what, 1.5 mi?
- brianwawok 4y ago
  2.5 miles is a < 10 minute bike.
  - andreareina 4y ago
    > That is generally a walkable distance
    - brianwawok 4y ago
      It is walkable. Can you walk 2.5 miles? I can.
      - RHSeeger 4y ago
        So, we're going to start school an hour later to let kids sleep in. And then make them get up at the same early time so they can walk an hour to school? And then likely get to school smelling like a pool of sweat. That sounds sub-optimal.

mostlylurks 4y ago

Cold weather and darkness are not obstacles. Here in Finland the winters are darker, colder, and longer than in the vast majority of the US, yet even elementary schoolers usually go to school by themselves, often by foot or on a bike, sometimes by taking a bus or a train. The problem that the US faces with respect to this issue is primarily caused the design of american cities (including the surrounding suburbs), which are laid out in a manner that makes the use of a car a practical necessity for getting anywhere. You wouldn't have to worry about a 20-mile country road to school out of a suburb if you instead made the sensible choice of placing services (like schools) right where they are needed, as european cities tend to do, instead of 20 miles away.

scottLobster 4y ago
You'd be surprised. Note that Sioux Falls, the capital of South Dakota, has substantially lower average lows in Winter than Helsinki. https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/finland/helsinki/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/finland/helsinki/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/sioux-falls/climate https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/sioux-falls/climate Yes our car-dependent infrastructure is an issue, but it's infrastructure we've built up for the better part of a century. Changing it will be slow and gradual, and in the meantime cold weather and darkness are issues in much of the country. Also hot weather in other parts of the country (heat stroke can be a serious concern in the Southwest)
- jds_ 4y ago
  Pierre is the capital of South Dakota - though Sioux Falls is the largest city. One statistic I've read for eastern South Dakota is that it's one of the worst states to live if you hate extreme cold and extreme heat as we have both - sometimes within a week of each other!
- herbstein 4y ago
  Helsinki is one of the Southern-most cities of Finland situated on the edge of a large body of water. Instead, take a look at this Not Just Bikes video covering biking in Finland during winter: https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU The weather in Oulu during winter looks a lot like the weather in Sioux Falls, except there's a lot more precipitation (snow) in Oulu.

rglullis 4y ago

And then people say that they live in suburbia because it is better to raise children... And then people say that all the work they do is for the benefit of their children... And then people say that those against mandatory school attendance are crazy...

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago

There are definitely jobs that start before 09:00. My workplace starts at 06:00 or 07:00 depending on how much work is on, there are no other options.

GayforMoleman 4y ago

> That doesn’t work in a huge percentage of areas in the US. Heat, cold, darkness Lmao how do people talk like this with a straight face.

InefficientRed 4y ago

> When the high is 110 F in a Phoenix suburb, you can’t ask the 14 year olds to skateboard 20 miles to school on a country road with no breakdown lane. Similarly, you can’t ask kids from Maine to skateboard to school in the dark on ice. 80% of Americans live in urban or suburban areas [1] and the average school commute distance for high schoolers is (or, was, can't find a recent number) 6 miles [2]. FWIW, I lived a little under 5 miles from school in a non-bike-friendly suburb and managed to transport myself to and from school just fine without a car. We had 100 degree days in the summer, but we also had... summer break. Maybe one hot week in August, but nothing I would call dangerous. The "20 miles down a county road" scenario is an outlier. If that is representative of your community, then the school policies of your community (including start time) should reflect that reality. The 80+% rest of us are having a different conversation about a different place. No reason to get angry about it. > city dwellers Far more Americans live in metro areas than in nonmetro rural areas. > childless The vast majority of American children do not live in rural areas. Rural areas are, on average, old and managing to get older. > think they’re making some massive revelation suggesting that kids just get their own butts to school at a comfortable 10:30 am. The California law requires a start time no earlier than 8:30am, which is already several hours later than 10:30. When I was in high school our start time was 7am or something like that, but there were "negative hours" so you could show up as early as 6am. There was cold breakfast in the cafeteria with a staff member present, or you could go to some classrooms for tutoring (I think one per core subject). Hazy on the exacty details -- it was a long time ago -- but I do remember the doors were unlocked 1 hour before classes started and you could either hang out or get tutoring. Starting -1 hour at 7:30am gives a parent 1.5 hours to commute from school to their job by 9am. -- [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demogra... [2] https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/Travel%20To%20School.pdf https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/Travel%20To%20School.pdf

odessacubbage 4y ago

from the ages of 8 to 13 i woke up at 5:45 and did a double public bus transfer every weekday to get to the out of district rich kids school, approx 45 miles at 14 i biked along county roads to get to the hippy school, approx 14 miles. both my parents worked. i am not a city dweller. kids can absolutely get themselves to and from school and doing so at 9:00 or 10:00 will mean safer roads with less ice and less traffic. if school started at 10:00, snow days would virtually be a thing of the past. skateboards have a lower fatality & injury rate than bikes(mostly due to the inherently lower speeds involved), although they have limitations for long distance transport and offer no luggage capacity.

bigDinosaur 4y ago

Why is it that we can radically transform human society in the first place, but we simply cannot design our cities and schools and work days to just let teenagers sleep in a bit more? There's absolutely nothing immutable here and these are all problems that can be solved. Why can't workdays be vastly more flexible for parents? Why can't public transport be vastly superior to allow teenagers to get to school whenever needed? These also aren't weird, aspirational goals that have never been done before, there are plenty of places where public transport is good enough even in rural areas so that kids can actually get to school. The areas so sparsely populated that that's impossible are...not the majority, to put it mildly.

shreyshnaccount 4y ago
Because it's not economically beneficial, or atleast no one's made it economically beneficial yet. Because obviously teenagers wellbeing << money
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > economically beneficial In some cases, it's more a concern of economically _viable_. Sometimes, the fact that something would cost more means it's not possible. We have teachers that have to pay for the children's school supplies out of their own pockets, because the school system doesn't get enough money.
  - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
    Which happens because schools don't matter as much to the people in charge as the military-industrial complex, it's a self fulfilling prophecy..
- achenet 4y ago
  I disagree with this, I think it's just a force of habit, where outdated industrial era behavioral patterns keep propagating themselves because no one takes the time to rethink them. There are plenty of companies with flexible working hours, and large open-source programming projects with completely asynchronous workflows. Now yes, there are some valid reasons for a business, such as a shop or restaurant, to have certain opening hours - for most shops, being open during the day and at similar times to other shops (to increase chances that a customer who comes to buy something from one shop will be drawn into the shop next door) is ideal. However, there is no valid economic reason that I can discern for the vast majority of businesses and the school system to keep blindly imitating 19th century factories in their work hours.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chrsig 4y ago

I grew up in an incredibly rural town (population ~1200) in new england. I had to walk half a mile down a dirt road to catch a bus at 6:30am. It's often still dark out at this time -- having a later start and still having to do the walk would have actually been safer. Not that it was particularly dangerous. I was more worried about a coyote than anything else. The bus ride was an hour long. If my parents had time, they'd drive me to the end of the road and let me sit in the car, or if i was lucky drive me to school (allowing me to sleep in more) > Somebody has to drive the kids to school (hard requirement — there’s no bus and a bike/skateboard is too perilous) I don't agree with the assessment that there's no bus. If there *really* isn't, change that. In general: adjust society to make more sense. We know teens have higher sleep requirements. Meet their needs. Find solutions. Work environments can adjust, even if they don't like it. Maybe well rested teens will be less likely to shoot up the school shrug

fsckboy 4y ago
when I was a teen I was sent to bed at 10, had no trouble falling asleep and got plenty of sleep. I know teens like to rebel and do what they want and stay up late, but that's different than saying it's difficult for them to actually fall asleep at a reasonable hour and it seems rather drastic to rearrange everyone else's schedule to accommodate staying up late playing games and texting
- chrsig 4y ago
  Research has found that teens need more sleep than adults. Just some quick results from a google search: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528821/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528821/ https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/teenagers-and-sleep https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/tee... https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/features/students-sleep.htm https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/features/students-sleep.h...
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    I'm well aware of the research, I'm talking about the scheduling. And more research will be produced showing that teen clocks are also offset, but it's still the case that I have all my anecdata about what it feels to be tired, to get enough sleep etc., and what it feels like to be a teen rebelling against any rules. hunter gatherer teens did not sleep late every morning, they had to get up just like everybody else, probably at the crack of dawn

kortilla 4y ago

When it’s 110 in Phoenix don’t send the kids to school because it’s summer.

bluejekyll 4y ago

“there’s no bus” Aren’t school districts required to offer busing to rural communities? That’s the way it was done in PA. Granted, that doesn’t fix the sleeping in issue since we had to catch the bus pretty early.

HWR_14 4y ago

Those kids in Phoenix and Maine should just take a school bus like half the kids in America that cannot take themselves. Phoenix suburbs aren't that sparsely populated. There are a lot of solutions that don't require school starting before 9 am. Also, while you may be correct about it affecting a huge area of the US, it doesn't affect many children in the US. Precisely because it's a problem with low density. Maybe the true simple solution is that rural children all telecommute and do teleschool.

cycomanic 4y ago

I always wonder when reading the posts about how it's impossible for kids/teenagers to get to school by themselves because of weather, are the parents happy with the type of dependent children they create? Children that have to rely on their parents to get anywhere until well into their teenager years seems like a disaster to me. How will they ever learn to become independent?

diordiderot 4y ago
Sadly they are happy with dependent children.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Not wanting your kid to walk 2 miles to school when the windchill is -40F isn't an independence problem; it's a safety issue.

popcube 4y ago

and this is a easier way to make sure kid had arrived school!