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My high school in Texas started at 9:05 am. Sample size of 1, but my experience was: (a) It still felt “early” to me at the time, but not “difficult” to be up

My high school in Texas started at 9:05 am. Sample size of 1, but my experience was: (a) It still felt “early” to me at the time, but not “difficult” to be up for. (b) I don’t remember anyone complaining about school starting early or people being generally sleep deprived - if someone was exhausted in school we were all amused and curious what adventures they’d been having to stay out way too late. (c) I do recall that there was an optional “early period” that started at 7:30 and some people took classes then or had sports stuff at that time, and I specifically remembering thinking that you had to be out of your mind to participate in anything requiring you to be up that early. By contrast my wife, who is much more the “go to bed on time” type than I ever was, had band at 6am and school at 7:30, and describes her high school as a blur that she slept through half of. So the article’s recommendation for a 9am start time seems pretty logical to me.

hdctambien 4y ago
I taught in a Texas district that starts high school at 9:05. I appreciated that over the 6:50 start I had in Massachusetts... but it didn't really change much for the students. I would get up at 5am so I could run before school and I would still be getting emails from students that hadn't gone to bed yet. I don't think any of my students in TX were getting any more sleep than the students I taught in MA. They were just staying up later. But maybe on average, the student body is getting more sleep in TX than in MA ... but no way they are getting 9 hours on school nights.
yurishimo 4y ago
This was also my experience in Texas (DFW). Elementary school started and ended about 90 minutes before HS. This allowed the bus drivers to work from 2pm~ until 5pm. I would have liked it to start a bit later, or at least ramp up with a homeroom for 30-45 minutes. When I started HS in 2008, we didn't have homeroom classes anymore. Some days I would start bright eyed and bushy tailed doing Calculus at 9am. Bleh. I took some dual credit classes in my later years. I remember a few of them happened _before_ school started. Those sucked too, but they didn't cost me anything and I graduated with an associates degree so I can't complain too much.

hdctambien 4y ago

I taught in a Texas district that starts high school at 9:05. I appreciated that over the 6:50 start I had in Massachusetts... but it didn't really change much for the students. I would get up at 5am so I could run before school and I would still be getting emails from students that hadn't gone to bed yet. I don't think any of my students in TX were getting any more sleep than the students I taught in MA. They were just staying up later. But maybe on average, the student body is getting more sleep in TX than in MA ... but no way they are getting 9 hours on school nights.

yurishimo 4y ago

This was also my experience in Texas (DFW). Elementary school started and ended about 90 minutes before HS. This allowed the bus drivers to work from 2pm~ until 5pm. I would have liked it to start a bit later, or at least ramp up with a homeroom for 30-45 minutes. When I started HS in 2008, we didn't have homeroom classes anymore. Some days I would start bright eyed and bushy tailed doing Calculus at 9am. Bleh. I took some dual credit classes in my later years. I remember a few of them happened _before_ school started. Those sucked too, but they didn't cost me anything and I graduated with an associates degree so I can't complain too much.