New California law requires high schools to start later
apnews.comAmazing how this irritates many. We never had classes before 8.30 ( not US ) when I was a kid. School starting at 7 would have caused an outrage. Parents were generally starting work between 8-9 so dropping of the kid on the way to work makes sense. At 7 most parents would have been an hour early for work which is not awesome for everyone.
How bizarre to read that an entire culture apparently has promoted extraordinary lazy kids for 5 or so decades, because their standard school starting time differs from the US one.
There is a catasrophic level of disrespect for the younger generation. It is clear by looking at the tone in the media, the derision with which issues that affect them are treated and the level of devastation we are leaving for them to handle, both in financial debt and climate change.
I don't know if it's envy, if they oldies are uncomfortable with change, or they just feel incomplete if there isn't someone lower down on the foodchain.
Arguing with them is of little use, they already decided their position, and what they are giving you are their justifications and confabulations for why it's okay to do so.
That's why there are articles about how Millenials have destroyed the economy and the housing market because they eat too many avocados and are all turning gay and genderfluid. Millenials even broke politics, but all the politicans are like 80
It's okay for a senile 90 year old to vote even if he never finished school and voted for the same party his entire life, but a 17 year old just isn't mature enough. However it's okay to draft them into the army just 1 year later and send them off to die in a foreign land, without them ever having had a chance to vote on the issue. It's also okay to send them to prison.
There seem to be 3 attitudes to kids:
1 - Adults that get some kind of power trip out of tyrany and justify it by 'toughening them up'. They demand respect and dicipline they never had themselves. They will have endless stories about how their childhood was tough, and they had to talk to school and home 10 miles, alone, thorugh the snow, and it was uphill both ways
2 - Adults that 'care', by helicoptering over kids and try to shape them into a career they wish they pursued themselves. In practice they rob kids of all agency and don;t let them gow. These guys are like a 'left-wing' version of the above, for lack fo a better metaphor.
3 - Adults that actually respect children as people with independant thoughts and emotional needs - seem to be a minority.
Maybe they look at kids and think that kids could do things better/smarter.
Because everything gets easier with experience. I think everyone has thought at some time what they would do differently if they were kids again or back to school again. Some things we'd do better and have a handle on because as an adult you have some school and life experience.
If they then without empathy look at schoolkids they don't understand how they think and what they struggle with.
FWIW, Boomers were a very entitled generation. They have the post-war benefits of their previous generation and ran up a huge deficit for the following generations to pay back.
I actually agree with you and millennials are, rightfully, somewhat bitter about it. It’s not just post-war benefits. It was the era of 9-5 jobs, pensions, union jobs that paid nearly 6 figures in rural America…in the 90s…with no education, fully paid medical benefits for the family, and cheap homes.
What do we have now? Self managed 401k which you have pour a life savings and second mortgage into in order to beat inflation, overpopulated suburbs, record levels of pollution, rising temperatures, impossibly expensive homes, their kids getting shot in schools, their rights being stripped away, skyrocketing college tuition costs…
I actually believe a lot of millennials don’t know how bad they have it comparatively and somewhat ironically, boomers also don’t know how good they had it.
> Boomers were a very entitled generation. They have the post-war benefits of their previous generation and ran up a huge deficit for the following generations to pay back
That's a better description of the Silent Generation than the Boomers.
I've literally never heard the silent generation described in that way.
That's because the dominance of analysis of named generations for anything besides marketing labels pretty much always ignores everything before the Boomers, and 90% of the time also skips GenX, too, limping everything before Millenials into “Boomers”, and ignores things like Clinton being not only the first Boomer President, but also pretty close to the early boundary of Boomer political dominance.
The generation who grew up during the Great Depression and WWII were very entitled???
I was more referring to the concrete description in the second sentence than the personality-based explanation in the first.
(But, now that you mention it, a lot of the Silent Generation would have no memory of the Depression and little to none of the war, and the main formation of their adult expectations would be the immediate post-War period whereas Boomers either missed that entirely or were infants/toddlers, so...)
I gree up in a suburban (but bordering city limits) district outside of Pittsburgh. In high school, our first bell was at 8:40. In middle school, 8:20.
I went to high school 20 years ago and it started at 7:15 am and got out at 2:15 pm. I walked to school so it was never a problem for my parents.
8:30 or later. Good. I say start it at 10. Let the kids sleep in and be happier for it.
Ten sounds like a nightmare for working parents. Eight seems like a completely reasonable start time to me, yet this law prevents that. Schools should be able to decide for themselves based off of the parents and what works for those in the district.
While as a parent myself I agree but this is high school. Generally speaking someone who's 13 or older should be able to make their way onto a bus without an adult. When I was that age (granted this was the 90s) I had a key to the house and was trusted to let myself in when I got back.
What's worse is the end of day. My kid is younger and I need to be at the bus stop at 3:50 PM every day to meet her.
I walked by myself a quarter mile to kindergarten. I walked by myself to a bus stop through the rest of my school days until myself & friends started driving. Most of those years I came home to an empty house at the end of the school day.
Not sure why this is a big deal. Kids can manage on their own.
Starting at kindergarten, I always made my own way to work. Walk or bike. At one time school was 3 miles away.
After school, sometimes I'd hunt a bear for dinner.
Nowadays that wouldn't be possible. Think about all the food waste generated when hunting a whole bear for just one meal.
Uphill... both ways.
> 13 or older
Jeez, we've really infantilized our kids.
What's infantilizing about recognizing that most people attending high school are 13 or older?
Really late reply but exactly this. I said 13 because this was an article about highschool, which for most people starts at 13.
Though, with that said, I don't know what is the youngest age I could generalize it with. Depends so much on the maturity of the child and also how far where you live is from the bus stop. But I think it is safe to say that age is equal to or less than 13.
Well, yes, we do tend to treat children as children.
I'm a bit older than you, and when I was 10 my parents had no qualms with leaving me home alone (along with my younger sister).
But this was a time when neighbors knew each other well and you could go next door for help if you needed it. (and also if you did something dumb, you could count on your mom finding out from a neighbor)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/06/bus-denver-...
Sorry, my kids aren't riding the bus.
That's because the law is based around what's been observed behaviorally/biologically. Not what's good for working parents
Schools shouldn't be forcing developing humans into a schedule that impairs their ability to learn and function, no matter what they want to decide
If they do enough physical and mental labor during the day and turn off their smart phones at night, they’ll have no issue going to sleep early enough.
On the other hand if you do nothing mentally stimulating or physically tiring all day long, then of course you won’t be able to sleep till late.
I'd rather just stick to what studies find as best instead of anecdotes about needing to physically exhaust children to force them into the desired sleep schedule. Also there's research showing humans have varying natural times they ideally sleep at, and they suffer outside those hours.
That's no joke. I did tree removal for a few weeks one Summer while waiting for my Summer camp counselling job to start. I slept a solid 10 hours every night and felt awesome every morning. "Guiltless sleep of the righteous" and all of that. If they could bottle that sleep in a pill without having to drag downed trees all day, it would be crazy addictive.
Have you read the relevant research on the subject?
Teenagers literally have different sleep rhythms than either children or adults, so in the average case staying up late is a symptom, not a cause.
ITT: people who haven't read the research decide they know what is best based on personal anecdote
> physical labor during the day
You heard it boys and girls, back to ploughing the fields it is!
I'm hearing child labor is coming back in vogue in the US!
What is behaviorally/biologically beneficial varies by individual. Societal life should be a factor as that does factor into the holistic well-being of the student. Not just some myopic rule about start times that negatively impacts everything else (after school activities, jobs, parent schedules, etc).
"Schools shouldn't be forcing developing humans into a schedule that impairs their ability to learn and function, no matter what they want to decide"
If you actually believe that, then you have to be against this law. Any schedule will negatively affect someone. A later schedule would have been terrible for me.
> What is behaviorally/biologically beneficial varies by individual.
As someone that has sleep issues that deviate vastly from the norm, I empathize with this point, but it doesn't really mean much when it comes to designing policy, which is supposed to serve its demographic broadly.
> Societal life should be a factor as that does factor into the holistic well-being of the student. Not just some myopic rule about start times that negatively impacts everything else (after school activities, jobs, parent schedules, etc).
The rule being set by the state or by the local school district is hardly of consequence. You're okay with painting broad strokes about parents' lives but then make an argument about individual students.
> If you actually believe that, then you have to be against this law. Any schedule will negatively affect someone. A later schedule would have been terrible for me.
Unless you're suggesting that the start times be adjusted to cater to every single individual's needs, this is just pointing out that the start time the school you attended coincided with what worked for you personally.
"which is supposed to serve its demographic broadly."
Which the current times do.
"The rule being set by the state or by the local school district is hardly of consequence."
This is totally untrue. At the district level, parents have more say in creating the rules that work for them (their local demographic!).
"You're okay with painting broad strokes about parents' lives but then make an argument about individual students."
Either one is broad. I'm pointing out that the very argument you make can be used against the position you're defending.
> Which the current times do.
According to... what? The whole reason that California passed a law like this and why it's been suggested to push up the start time for high school is largely because the time that many school districts started their high schoolers at was of negative consequence to the children.
> This is totally untrue. At the district level, parents have more say in creating the rules that work for them (their local demographic!).
Are you saying that you'd have no objections if the local school district chose to start high school at a later time? I might agree with you that the state is overstepping its bounds by mandating an earliest start time, but that doesn't seem to be what you're complaining about. It seems more that you disagree that a later start time is beneficial to students (because you personally benefitted from the early start time of your high school) and that it's inconvenient to parents because they have to figure out the logistics of getting their kid to school at a later time.
"the time that many school districts started their high schoolers at was of negative consequence to the children."
That hasn't been proven yet. I guess we'll see with the next year's test scores compared to this year. I don't expect much to change test-wise. I do expect extracurricular partipation will drop.
"Are you saying that you'd have no objections if the local school district chose to start high school at a later time? "
Yes, I would be fine with districts starting later if the district was the one deciding it based on parental representation. At least then we could have a local discussion and do what works best for us.
> Societal life should be a factor as that does factor into the holistic well-being of the student
Not really, tehre seems to be 3 groups of people:
1 - Adults that get some kind of power trip out of tyrany and making kids miserable and justifying it by 'toughening them up'. They deman respect and dicipline while demonstrating total disrespect towards kids and usually have little dicipline themselves. They will have endless stories about how their childhood was tough, and they had to talk to school and home 10 miles, alone, thorugh the snow, and it was uphill both ways
2 - Adults that 'care', by helicoptering over kids and try to shape them into a career they wish they pursued themselves. These guys are hardly better.
3 - Adults that actually respect children as people with independant thoughts and emotional needs
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the second point; Adults need not necessarily be helicopter parents and only push their children towards desirable career fields. They can simply be overbearing while supporting their children in what they want to pursue, though this has its own negative consequences tied to it at as well.
Your list also entirely excludes neglectful parents, whose lack of presence and guidance can be of great detriment to their children's progress in life.
I think that there are a lot of parents who might encompass all sorts of different stereotypes as they try to raise their children the best they can. "Toughening up" children is important. Building up resiliency in a controlled and safe environment is necessary for a person to navigate regular life. Showing compassion and interest in your children is important because it allows them to live their most honest selves. Providing structure for children is important because it helps them succeed in a world that very much relies on various constructs.
I think ultimately, parenthood is hard and finding the right balance of things is hard and unfortunately, you can't just undo the mistakes that can have lifelong impact on your children. I don't think my parents raised me the best they could have, but I don't doubt that they definitely tried.
> A later schedule would have been terrible for me.
Me too. I have always been an early riser, early sleeper. Forcing me to go to school later in the day would have been awful.
In what way would it have been awful? Even if you shifted schools several hours ahead of your wake time, it just means that you have more time in the morning and less time in the afternoon, but still well within your normal hours.
I think the goal of these sorts of policies is to increase the breadth of students which can benefit from you know, actually being well rested inside school hours. A person that sleeps later and wakes up later (which studies that justify these sorts of policies indicates teenagers largely are) would benefit from a later start time.
But if all schools have to start later, employers will need to work around that
Some might. I bet many won't. Good luck doing business with the east coast if your office doesn't open until 11 am pacific.
If you're doing business with the east coast, you probably don't need to be in the office for that.
Bosses beg to differ. Seats aren't going to warm themselves.
The labor market you’d be missing out on by not hiring any parents whatsoever is enormous. They will find a way.
Our company did that for many years, we just scheduled all east coast calls for after 2 pm Eastern. Worked fine.
No they won't. They'll still keep their same schedule, and parents will have to figure out how to deal with it. Some don't have family members that can help, and some enterprising daycares will open up early for school kids to deal with them before school.
Of course, the buses won't run that early, so only well-to-do parents will be able to use those daycares in the first place, leaving poor parents even worse off than they were before.
Why? We're talking high schools - which I believe in the US is about age 15 onwards, nothing to do with parents
13,14, or 15. Source: I was 13 when I started high school in 9th grade. Not all high schools start at 10th grade
It can be age 13 onward, although your point is still quite valid, even at 13.
Indeed. Sure some 8 or 9 year olds can get themselves to and from school even without a school bus, but certainly by the time you hit 11 or 12 it's more likely they transport themselves than be chauffeured around
How do you think this has nothing to do with parents? You do realize that 14-17 is still a minor?
There's a reason that age is called "young adult" . Only helicopter parents can't handle the idea of a 13 year old not being okay on their own for an hour or so after they head out to work. I was riding my bike to school at 9 and I survived, kids haven't changed that much in 15 years. Obviously there are exceptions like for special needs children, but those are pretty rare.
The laws and case law say otherwise.
And are fully capable of walking, riding bikes, or waiting for the bus on their own. The permanent infantilization of America is fucking insane and dangerous.
Parents get forced into it due to the laws and societal expectations (juries/civil cases). Guess who can go to jail if their teenage kid doesn't go to school? Fix that law, and then we can start talking about these.
Yes we should fix those laws. But now most schools let you stay late, no reason they won’t be able to let you come earlier for those who need it.
I wouldn't say "nothing to do with parents." But kids in that age range can do quite a few things on their own. I was in college in a different city at 16.
It's not so much them getting to school on their own, yes they can easily do that. It's making sure they are actually awake. When my kids were teens, if someone was not there to make sure they got up, they would sleep until 10 or 11. Alarms, etc. had basically no effect they could sleep through a tornado.
The later you start school, the less of an issue this will be.
Fair enough. I was driven to high school by my mother. 9am classes in university were tough and they were just a short walk away :-)
I'm not just talking about the getting to school part. I'm also talking about setting the time part via parents at the board meetings.
The idea that just because you’re a minor you can’t take a bus, a bus specifically for children, in fact, is ludicrous. Can’t coddle kids forever. Except for special needs people should be able to do basic things by themselves at age 13, earlier in most cases.
If your 14 year old is not capable of sorting themselves out for a couple of hours you've failed as a parent, and your idea that a 17 year old needs a parent to wipe their bottom is hilarious?!
Do you think something magically happens on their 18th birthday?
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
Don't working parents already have a nightmare with school day ending around 2pm? This would just shift some of that nightmare from afternoon to morning.
They already have daycare picking the kids up. Now they have to drop the kids off, and the kids can't really do anything at daycare because they are quickly getting into the bus to get to school, then when off school there is less time to do anything before their parents pick them up again.
No high school student is going to daycare though, and this law is specifically for high school students.
High school has sports and activities though. I know many families that use the sports team as if it were a day care. If they do sports the kids usually get out somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30. Where I live now, a lot of the high schoolers are in school 7:30-5:30. It’s pretty ridiculous, since they also have homework. Many high schools seem to be in the process of transforming themselves into juvenile prisons designed to keep teenagers away from the rest of society.
It must be a fairly low portion of high school students who do after-school activities every single day, right?
Sports can happen before school
It’s not an analogy. One of school’s main purposes along with sorting and ranking and reducing their tendency to creativity and independent thought is day care.
and getting them to sitdown, shut up and follow instructions without questioning the boss.
This is a bit anti-DEI. Special needs and kids with behavioral issues do need that. Now they would need it twice a day.
Not with after school activities like sports or clubs.
The bigger issue is requiring some sort of pre-care. Which if necessary, makes this whole law moot because you're waking the kid up for that.
not really, it doubles it. Instead of having to arrange for care/transportation/etc once for a few hours in the afternoon, now you have to arrange for it twice for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two in the afternoon.
I work remotely and start my day at 10am. I've done this for years and the only reason I ever got up early was to drive kids to school. As a working parent starting at 8 was a nightmare for my wife (who works similar hours) and I. We alternated so neither of us would be to sleep deprived as it's really hard to get back to sleep after driving your kids to school.
It's to late to help us.. my youngest just turned 16 and will be able to drive themself to school next year and we'll finally get decent sleep during the school year. But this would be a big boon to lots of people.
Schools ending at 3 pm is also a nightmare for working parents. But most high schoolers can get on the bus themselves. After care, sports exists in many places for those that can’t/whose parents are against it. Now you can just move some of those after school activities before school for kids whose parents won’t let them take the bus themselves.
Plenty of things "should" happen but the systemic problem that if solved would alleviate these issues is to make sure people live near enough to good schools to elide the need for driving children to school in the first place.
You can have before school programs for people who have to get their kids to school early. It can replace after school care
As a former child, I truly understand that a lack of sleep is a problem in teens, but I think this solution is probably worse for everybody.
1) The flipside to starting much later is that kids will be exiting schools later. Want to participate in some after school activities or clubs that aren't physically in school? A HS kid wants to hold down a little part time job so she can save to buy that first car or afford that summer trip she wants? Any activities out of school become much more difficult to manage if the exiting time moves any later. And these extracurriculars are also a big part of many peoples' lives.
2) I think it's naive to think that kids will get much extra sleep regardless of the school starting time. Their need for socialization and leisure activities out of school doesn't suddenly vanish if school starts later: they just get shifted. If you tell kids that they can manage to wake up at 9 instead of 7 and still make it to school on time, they'll just tend to stay up about 2 hours later playing games, watching movies, or chatting with friends. The end result might be about the same amount of sleep.
3) Logistically, it's hard enough for most parents to see their kids for a few minutes and deal with getting their kids out of the door in the morning (or driving them to school) when their wakeup times roughly coincide and they can get a little breakfast together or have a few minutes to chat. Trying to arrange a much different school schedule for kids is going to present a lot more difficulties to working parents, particularly if the kid has some special needs, is a tad rebellious about going to school, or you have to drive them for some other reason.
Just thinking out loud here, but I'd say that getting rid of the nightly busy work (homework) is a better way to fix teens schedules. They already spend enough time at school learning. Stop forcing them to waste an hour or two every night regurgitating mostly busy work and then feeling like crap and needing to stay up another few hours decompressing. Let them get their fill of fun and socialization after a long day. Without the burden of homework, most teens have enough extra time in the day to get a little extra rest and still have enough to unwind and feel like a human.
1) They wouldn't need to get out any later. Most of the school day is basically baby sitting and they could easily fit the actual teaching in <4 hours.
2) There have been bunches of studies that show teenagers don't get proper sleep specifically when they get up early. There is something about that age that requires sleeping later to get good rest. No matter when they go to bed.
3) Who says their waking coincides with the current times? Doesn't for us. Something like 9:30 or 10:00 would.
> 1) They wouldn't need to get out any later. Most of the school day is basically baby sitting and they could easily fit the actual teaching in <4 hours.
You have reinvented the German Gymnasium (grammar school). Congratulations.
Never heard of that. Doesn't surprise me that the Germans came up with a more efficient education system.
I think we're in agreement that sleep is an issue for a lot of kids, but the devil is in a ton of details about how society is organized.
To comment on your points...
> 1) They wouldn't need to get out any later. Most of the school day is basically baby sitting and they could easily fit the actual teaching in <4 hours.
I agree that they wouldn't need to get out any later and that most of the school day is a waste and can be radically compressed, but I sincerely doubt that this is what would happen. If we're talking about showing up to school later and leaving at the same time, I'd say that's a big win over the current situation. Please tell me I've misread things and this is what we're talking about. I'd be happy to have that be the outcome, but I doubt it.
> 2) There have been bunches of studies that show teenagers don't get proper sleep specifically when they get up early. There is something about that age that requires sleeping later to get good rest. No matter when they go to bed.
I've seen similar tendencies in the studies I've come across as well, but I'm not convinced that the stats are interpreted correctly based on human nature. My thinking is that the people who need sleep the most probably aren't going to go to bed at a sane time and end up with a large net sleep gain. That said, I'm a little open-minded about this point applying to many (but not all people)
> 3) Who says their waking coincides with the current times? Doesn't for us. Something like 9:30 or 10:00 would.
Everybody's job and life situation is different, but I'd bet that a lot of lower income people have to deal with getting to work earlier, and have more transportation issues (trying to connect to multiple busses and trains, etc) and more complex childcare requirements necessitating less overall time flexibility in the morning.
I'd wager it's largely the technical, white-collar class that can show up later and generally has a quicker path to work (work in pajamas in living room, or hop into the car in the driveway and drive to work with no connecting delays)
> The flipside to starting much later is that kids will be exiting schools later
Or they could just give that time back. Maybe things have changed, but back when I was in school, almost every class was a waste of time.
Even if you only take courses that aren't wastes of time, there just isn't that much to do on a typical day. I remember when I was in school I was taking something like 5 AP courses senior year but still had multiple study halls per day, a useless homeroom which was basically a buffer for people getting to school late, a gym class, and a 40 minute lunch. Almost half the day was time not spent in lecture. A lot of the time is literally babysitting.
This is how people can go to college and spend comparatively little time in class yet learn more than they did in high school.
That won't work for young kids if the parents have to go to work by 9.
If a high schooler needs to be driven to school by their parent, there is a serious street safety/transit problem which should be solved.
Most of America is a serious street safety/transit problem which should be solved.
A plurality ~35% of high school students are driven to school, though not necessarily by a parent.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739456X1772514...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/how-dista...
EDIT: This is nationwide, there's reason to believe this percentage is probably higher in California.
I was one of those kids. Only because taking the bus was a pain in the ass and my parents loved me enough to put up with it, at least until I could drive.
Bus was awful. Kids had no respect for the driver or other kids. Plus it easily tripled the commute time.
Yes. The bus my kids would have to take to High School served both middle and high school. They would have been on the bus for about 40 minutes and arrived at school 30 minutes before the first period started. School was about 15 minutes away by car.
If I drove them (or when they were old enough to drive on their own), they could sleep nearly an hour later than if they had to take the bus. Since it wasn't much of a detour on my way to work, that's what I did.
Did you live in an area sparsely populated by families with children that matched your child’s age, or did you choose (or forced to use for desegregation) a school that was far away? The fact that transit was an option makes me think it was the latter.
I spent most of my school aged years in an city with a mediocre transit system. Most parents did not drive their kids to school except in very bad weather. Also, most people attended the school closest to their home. This meant the mediocre transit system used buses for special school routes usable only by students. I rarely took this bus as I preferred to bike or walk in about the same amount of time the bus would take.
Where I live now, something similar happens at least for the kids that are bussed across town to achieve a somewhat consistent racial mix in all schools.
Has everyone driving their kids to school eroded the viability of walking, biking, or taking a school bus?
> Bus was awful.
Exactly. Similar to the problem many adults have trying to get to work by bus, it often doubles or triples a commute time.
Yep. I'm all for people choosing their transit... but even if I'm not driving, 3x-ing the commute just isn't something I could do.
Ok, well it's not going to be solved. So what's your view on it now?
A school day ending at 2pm already has this issue - this just splits it between the start and end of the day. For some parents that may be better, for some it may be worse. There's also the possibility for before-school activities or in-school breakfast.
I think the bigger issue is unsupervised minors. Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school. I suppose this could be solved by pre-care, but that make this bill completely moot.
If you can't trust a highschool aged kid to go to school on their own, early start times aren't going to change anything. Heck, you can drive them to the building and watch them walk inside and they'll just walk right out the back. Delinquent kids dgaf. Now for the not totally delinquent but still up for sketchy borderline behaviour kids, finishing early and having couple hours between the end of class and when their parents come home from work is when all the dumb stuff happens. Sleeping in and getting home around the same time as their parents leaves a lot fewer opportunities for hijinks.
If the kids really have a hard time waking up (the point t of this law), then it's possible they over sleep. Many parents might not be comfortable with their kid cooking breakfast unsupervised too.
If they're in after school activities and/or have a job, then it seem unlikely that they would get into trouble anyways. Pushing the time back will make these after school activities unfeasible for many, and limit opportunities.
I'm failing to reconcile the image of a hypothetical teenager who is both so irresponsible and incompetent that you can't trust them to get up or make breakfast on their own without burning down the house while simultaneously being capable of having an after school job.
If you can't leave them unsupervised in the mornings, surely they can't be left alone after school either. Net net, there's going to be some time they're unsupervised. May as well let them get some rest. Maybe the lack of sleep deprivation will even encourage better decision-making.
They don't need to be the same kid.
After school has after school activities. It also typically means they don't need to cook if the parents are home for dinner.
Use an alarm. Eat cereal. Use the microwave. These are all non problems that any half functioning adult or high school kid can think of solutions to.
If the kids are really so sleep deprived that we need a law about it, then it's likely some will sleep past their alarms.
Dictating diet by limiting options doesn't sound like a great plan to me.
You know what else is a non-problem? The current start times.
I see the argument you are making and just want to suggest that this law is trying to help out the kids who are both capable of getting to school on their own regardless of start time, who would also benefit from the extra sleep. I suspect that this is the majority of the population of teenagers. Public schools are not really a free market where kids get to pick and choose based on features like start times. Most are selected because it is the only practical option for the family's means. In the absence of market pressure, using legislation to improve people's lives isn't wrong.
If this is such a contentious issue, then why not allow the parents in each district to decide? That's really what I'm getting at - the state is making this decision for everyone by usurping the parents representation at the district level.
If it is such a contentious issue, then why go through all the extra time and effort to decide it for each and every district? Parents still have a voice and vote at the state level do they not?
Because what works for one district might not work for another based on the demographics and culture of the location.
Their voice at the state level is highly diluted by non-interested parties. Voting for school board members tends to be more focused and doesn't have as many people voting based on non-school issues like you would for a general representative.
These are high school students they are going to be living on their own soon. I think being able to feed themselves is a skill they should probably develop.
One could argue that being at school at 8am is a valuable skill they should since most jobs require that (or earlier) start time.
my ten year can cook breakfast, on a gas stove too. and besides there are plenty of breakfast options that don't require cooking. worst case, they reheat in the microwave what parents cooked earlier.
if a 15 year old can't be unsupervised at home, then their parents have different problems besides letting them cook for themselves.
>Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school
As an anecdote, 100% of my class was coming to the school and back without being supervised since age 8. This was in 90s and not in the US, but the gap of "mature enough to go to school" between my experience and the statement feels a bit high, somehow.
Yep. And it’s 100% normal for early prior year school aged kids in Japan to cross town on the subway on their own. The American obsession with helicoptering their kids all the way through their first job is super weird and unhealthy.
Could we just stop? Please? I know it's cool to talk shit about Americans constantly but it gets old. I want to expect better from HN.
> The American obsession with helicoptering their kids all the way through their first job is super weird and unhealthy.
My kids, along with many others, were getting themselves to & from school without my supervision starting in third grade. Earlier, even, for my son since his sister is two years older and was with him.
This is normal. What is the fascination that so many Europeans (and others) have with making wild unsupported assertions about what Americans do and then build an entire critique from that?
I’m American and I’ve seen enough helicopter stupidity over the years to be confident saying it’s a problem. Is it the norm? Maybe not. But it’s common enough to be a thing.
Most of the helicopter stupidity i see comes from people without kids. As in, you're a terrible parent because you weren't constantly watching your kids and they did something kids do that I don't like.
the fascination comes from all these stories here:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Late 80s, Netherlands. As of the age of 6, I was free roaming on my tiny bicycle. I could go wherever I please, zero supervision, just be back in time for diner. And of course without any technology (smartphone).
Modern parents would have a heart attack.
Yes, maturity in the US seems delayed compared to many places. I feel it's because the laws and nosy neighbors have basically made it impossible to give kids responsibility. Nobody wants to hire kids because of the labor laws. Kids don't want to work because they get everything handed to them or the cost of stuff like transportation is too high. Let your young kid play alone? You might have the cops called on you.
>Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school.
That's insane. I walked to school at 6. At 8, I walked to the bus stop and rode a public transit bus to school. The helicoptering has gone way to far and it is creating generations of crippled kids. I wonder if this is solely caused by the media pushing fear or if there are other factors.
I agree. We need to change the laws, case law, and societal expectations to stop threatening parents over lack of supervision.
We’re talking about a pretty small window of time. 2 hours at most. And a kid who’s going to willfully skip school is going to do so whether or not school starts at 8:30 instead of 7:30.
In most cases, this should work out better for parents. With elementary school starting latest (as was the norm in many places a decade ago), the little kids end up in pre-care AND after-care. Now, they’ll start earlier, possibly avoiding pre-care.
Two hours is plenty of time for mischief, and skipping school isn't the concern. Source: Made a lot of mischief in my youth.
Sure, but you probably would have gotten up to mischief regardless of the first bell. And in the case of the morning, would you choose mischief or an extra hour of sleep? Just a guess, but I bet most kids take the sleep.
I'm not sure we need public transportation to pick up 3 kids on top of a mountain.
This is for high school. But not all high schoolers are responsible enough, so still a point. Also, the majority of people have to be at work at 8am or earlier.
Who has to be at work nowadays, other than people who tend to work in jobs which mean shift patterns.
Sometimes I have to start work at 4am, does that mean that schools should start at 3am to make it convenient for me? What about when I finish at 11pm? What if I'm working overnight?
"Who has to be at work nowadays,"
That sounds incredibly privileged.
https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/overflow-data-finds-th...
If you want to selectively quote out of context go ahead. If you want to quote a 2017 report and claim it's relevant today go ahead.
>Who has to be at work nowadays
Nearly all workers that perform non-mental labour.
You should really consider talking to some less privileged people sometime.
Most of the world's workers aren't white collar, are they?
Even if they were, are all white collar jobs allowing full remote these days?
You helpfully cut the other than people who tend to work in jobs which mean shift patterns
Everyone I know that works in a location works shift patterns or other non 9-5 jobs. My wife might start at 7.30 am one day, or another day not finish to 9pm.
If you're working 9-5 every day it's increasingly unlikely you need to be in a specific place to do so. Those who do work in specific places tend to have to cover a far larger range than 9-5 and thus require alternate child care arrangements anyway.
let's make people start work later!
Mandatory blue laws before 9am!
No young people need to get up early to build character. If you let them stay up late they will get into trouble and become lazy watching TV and playing video games or whatever or worse they will be out late drinking and smoking marijuana. High school especially should start at 7:00 AM.
10am would mean less time for instruction or after-school programs.
Just make them before-school programs. There is no reason every student should be affected by after school programs which affect a subset of those students.
Yeah, because they won't just stay up later then.
Some of them may, but many more will wake up comfortably due to more sunshine flooding through the window.
Exactly. Sunshine is proven to supress melatonin production (no matter whether night owl or early bird). Melatonin is usually produced at night and encourages you to feel sleepy. So later waking up times are certainly helpful, even if the person goes to bed a bit later.
https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/0006-322... https://you.com/search?q=light+melatonin+production
Their parents will still likely wake them up when they go off to work.
I am VERY close to this situation, I'm married to a California teacher. Most of the kids hate this idea.
1. They know they and everyone else will just stay up later. 2. School will go on too late in the day, sports participation is dropping appreciably. 3. Those who work after school or school/sports are quitting sports to work, and planning ways to leave when they did previously to go to work.
This is incredibly short-sighted, and will not last a year.
Education is more important than playing football. Working is more important than playing football (for those who need the money).
Anecdotally, when I was in high school, with a 7:30 AM start, around 25% of the class was asleep through 1st period. And this was in honors/AP courses with the kids who wanted to learn, get good grades, and generally be successful.
That doesn't match my experience at all. I started at 7:15 (special elective) and school started at 8. The only kids who would fall asleep were the kids that stayed up late playing videogames, abusing caffeine (and/or other drugs), and didn’t care about grades.
So my anecdotes don't match your's.
Football (and its school attendance and passing grade requirements) might be the thing keeping a kid in school and getting an education.
Maybe. But, we’re not talking about eliminating sports. Or after-school employment. Only shortening the window to do both. And the Venn diagram of kids that “need” to play sports and need to work pales in comparison to the total student body, who all (in aggregate) benefit from more morning sleep.
I'm confused by this. My high school in a different state started at 8:30, ended at 3:30, and sports was everything to that school. Like one of my math teachers was primarily a teacher so they could be the basketball coach. Starting at 8:30 is really not much of a problem.
It feels like something that might better be decided at the local school district level.
The problem with that approach is the debate tends to be led by football parents who want to make sure there’s ample time for the kids to beat each other senseless on the field. Literally, that’s the argument we got in Fairfax County when similar proposals were floated.
This sounds like a vast over simplification and plain scapegoating. All the school start time surveys I've seen typically have an even split up to moderately favoring normal start times. Half the school is not on the football team.
Good thing they'll graduate and have kind bosses who are okay with them rolling in at 10.
The fact that "late bedtimes" is listed as a cause is telling - shifting the start time later isn't likely to help if it just allows/causes people to shift their bedtimes later in response.
Teens who go to bed at a reasonable hour are getting enough sleep and performing well.
Diurnal cycles are a thing. (Some people naturally are night owls.)
Reasonable is arbitrary according to your own preference/chronobiology most likely.
My highschool started at 7:15AM. I have no memory now (~15 years later) of any first period classes. I can remember things for 2nd period and later, but first period? Not even vague memories.
I'm surprised you remember any classes. I certainly don't.
Many folks are talking about bus schedules, but California hardly offers transporation in most districts. Only 9% of children take a bus to school [1] and that's been trending down for decades. Pay more, get less; sad state of affairs.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-03/californ...
Finally. There are these long comment threads talking about high school students taking public transit/school buses, but that just isn't how most high school students get to school. It is unfortunate that mid/late teenagers are so dependent on cars, which often means dependent on a parent or other adult, but that's the type of cities we've built in this country.
Another thing to note is that none of this is new information. This trend has existed for perhaps a decade or two, and the ignorance to that in this thread is really showing the age of the users on this site.
I remember when they cut most of the busses in California. They claimed it reduced their carbon footprint.
This seems crazy late. IIRC I had a 0-period class starting at 6:00am. Starting 2.5 hours later is surprising.
If I were back in high school, all this would have told me is that I'm staying up until at least midnight, if not later. I was usually good about sleeping around 9:30pm which gave me roughly 9 hours sleep.
Since I assume this means school will end later in the day, this just means homework gets pushed much later too. My parents were very strict about homework being done the same day, so there's no chance I would have been able to keep my old schedule and do homework in the mornings.
I'm curious what the effect is on the average and median kids. This would have been incredibly annoying for me.
> I had a 0-period class starting at 6:00am
Your school admins were assholes. What unholy sadists would start school that early??
What country was this?
In the US, I had similar (not quite as early) optional 0-period classes in high school that started around 6:45AM. It was awesome, small class sizes (because it was optional), interesting useful topics (Math and Philosophy).
I'm happy my school admins made this available to us. I don't understand your rage.
The rage is because the commenter didn't say it was optional (I guess I've never heard of "0" period). The implication was that 6am was the standard at his school.
But if anyone wants to get to school at the crack of dawn, have fun! Just don't impose that on those of us with different internal clocks.
Madness. I had a 9am start from elementary through to university. In the UK.
I'm in Southern California now. My kids middle school starts at 9... I'm glad High School will now be similar.
This was California.
Wow... so assuming 0-period was optional (per another commenter above), your first mandatory class was 7am every day? That's still insane for a school district to demand all kids and their parents to be up at 6am. Terribly inconsiderate.
"Studies show" that kids will not stay up later. I don't have the time to really look into it but I guess I'll trust it for now. I know 100% that I wouldn't have been disciplined enough to go to sleep sooner though.
I would always pretty much get as little sleep as I could function with because at that age, video games were more important, lol. But I don't want to extrapolate my experience, I'm sure most kids will adjust... but I can see a fair amount having even worse sleeping schedules.
Fr lol all this will do is make kids less disciplined. They need to be forced to go to bed and get up early precisely because it is harder than getting up late and staying up late. Inertia says its easier to stay up late than get up early so since we need to put discipline into kids we should do the opposite. Kids will otherwise just stay up late watching TV and smoking marijuana.
There are plenty of people for whom 'discipline' will never be able to overcome the effects of teenagers literally having a different biological clock than either children or adults.
Kids exercising this discipline have lower cognitive performance and more health problems.
I can't tell if this is satire or you're just peak boomer
One of the hardest times in my life was being 14 and absolutely exhausted in school. I also added to it by signing up for an early morning workout class. That combined with a dose of adderall each day had me absolutely tired and wired. I got hurt 3x in football and it just sent me into a spiral.
All that to say, glad to know that future generations of high schools will be getting more rest.
Same here, school started at 7:34 and the first period was always a complete wash. Might as well have called it napping class, or as close as you can get to napping while keeping your eyes just open enough that the teacher doesn't call you out. I've just looked it up, and it looks like my old school district got the memo because these days the bell rings at 8:09.
I never understand the schedule for schools:
1. elementary school starts at 7:30AM, middle school at 8:20, high school at 9:10 here. So, the youngest kid gets up at 6:50AM, older ones at 7:50AM, oldest at 8:40(assuming you're not too far from school that is). why the youngest ended up getting up the earliest puzzles me.
2. School is off in hot summer and cold winter, I would prefer they study on campus then, so they can enjoy longer break in spring and fall, where outdoor weather is much better to get around.
A recent economist article explains it well:
>Since the 1950s Americans have been moving away from cities to sprawling suburbs with limited public transport. Families became car-dependent and buses were used to get pupils to school. But to save money schools often have to share bus fleets. High-schoolers are usually picked up first, then middle school, to prevent elementary pupils from waiting in the morning darkness.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/06/23/californi...
It’s less about “saving money” IMO than about wastefulness. Every student going at the same time is just a waste of busing resources. Staggering it a bit is more efficient, which sure saves money but also just prevents waste
I attended elementary school (age 5-10, grades 1-5) in a small town. Each bus did four trips---two in the morning, and two in the afternoon. The morning trip wasn't bad as the kids needed to be at the stop in time for the bus to pick them up. It was after school that was bad for "second load" kids---they had to wait maybe half an hour (or more) for the bus to finish the route for the kids in "first load".
Seems like they could just pick up all aged kids at the same time and make multiple drop-off points at the various schools.
Not enough buses for that.
Your parent comment said
> the youngest kid gets up at 6:50AM, older ones at 7:50AM, oldest at 8:40
The comment you posted said
> High-schoolers are usually picked up first, then middle school, to prevent elementary pupils from waiting in the morning darkness.
They seem opposite, no?
Depends on the school district. Growing up my district did it younger->older, my partner’s did it the reverse. I think it’s considered my progressive to do older kids later since they tend to go to bed later.
> why the youngest ended up getting up the earliest puzzles me.
I think there's been quite a few studies indicating that teenagers benefit the most from later start times due to the shift in their internal clock. Little kids can deal with earlier start times.
Staggered start is frequently due to logistics; they don't want to pay for a larger fleet of school buses and drivers to facilitate the schools starting at the same time.
Helps working parents with logistics too. High school kids can dress themselves and get themselves to school.
I've heard that adolescents'/early adults' biological clocks skew later. In my cohort, there are lots of parents annoyed that early elementary school kids wake up before them on weekends. Adolescents on the other hand are notorious for sleeping in. Anecdotes don't make data, but I've heard second hand that data backs up these stereotypes.
Supposedly Summer break is so that kids can help with harvests on family farms.
If I let my body clock do what it wants, I sleep from about 3am - 11am. This has been my tendency since high school age. I'm 56 now. My memory of the 22 years I had kids living in the house is slightly fogged by me always being tired from having to get up early to be sure they got to school and me to work.
With the pandemic and WFH I shifted much closer to my natural schedule.
We're officially back in the office now, but nobody is really taking attendance so I get up at around 11, do some email while I eat breakfast, then head in to the office until about 6pm. I'm still getting as much or more done as I ever did, because I was too tired to be effective when I was coming in at 8:00 and basically just stared at the screen for two or three hours until I really woke up.
"why the youngest ended up getting up the earliest puzzles me."
It's so parents who have to go to work, can drop their kids off. The youngest are the ones who shouldn't (in most cities unfortunately) be going by public transports by themselves. While teens can just take the bus or subway.
Schools reused school buses, once they deliver the elementary school kids it is back out (different route) for the next grade. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other schools in your district with other start times.
If the school system would team up with public transit, they are already a quarter of the say to all day bus service for everyone.
In many European cities all public school students use the existing public transit (buses, trams, subway). Very young children are typically dropped off and picked up by a parent, but beyond second grade they are usually traveling with their peers.
"all" is hyper-optimistic. I live in such city, and it's half at best, the rest needs a car to get around anyways; and most schools require parents to pick up children at least until third grade.
Its totally designed for working parents, little kids need the most attention and therefore have the earliest start times. As kids get older they are more self sufficient hence the later school start times. But I think the reason for these times primarily is for parents where both of them go to work early. I am glad to see high schoolers start later as I remember having a very hard time getting up early during my teenage years.
> why the youngest ended up getting up the earliest puzzles me.
I've always heard teenagers need more sleep than younger kids. I've never actually verified this claim.
In my area it's the opposite, and the reason is simple: high schoolers don't need childcare.
> School is off in hot summer and cold winter, I would prefer they study on campus then, so they can enjoy longer break in spring and fall, where outdoor weather is much better to get around.
That's a pure anachronism, but switching costs are genuinely high so not totally irrational.
It may not be that teenagers need more sleep rather that it’s harder for them to get enough sleep because they don’t have someone else controlling their sleep schedule like children do.
It's neither. There have been studies that showed that they don't need more sleep, but are naturally on a later circadian rhythm. Young kids are on a early cycle. Once they become teens the cycle shifts to later hours and then in the 20s starts moving forward again.
1. It's way better for younger kids to start earlier than older kids, gives time for parents to get them out the door before work (older kids can manage themselves). There's also some evidence that older kids have more trouble getting up super early.
2. Highly regionally variable (California summer is the best season by far, east coast summer is much worse than fall) - summer also has the longest daytime light which is nice.
East coast summer is much worse than fall? What do you mean?
Generalizing a bit, but the east coast in the summer is often very hot, humid, and buggy. The east coast fall is often less humid and more temperate (more pleasant to be outside).
The west coast summer can be hot, but is rarely humid.
Middle of the country varies too much to really generalize imo.
Depends on a lot of things of course--including where on the East Coast and the activity. (I wouldn't make such a categorical statement about Maine for example.) But not so hot and humid. Not so buggy. (Also fewer people.) In general, I'd say that September/October are the ideal months for much of New England (and a lot of the West Coast as well.)
For us in high school we started the earliest. I think the idea was that older siblings might need to care for younger ones when they got out of school. Being a night owl, I’m 100% positive it was a driving factor in my disengagement and eventual expulsion (for truancy) from public school.
Related earlier discussion on the California law? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31711020
the chronic lack of sleep in highschool probably set back my intellectual development a decade. These days I genenrally sleep from midnight to 10am and that seems to be what I need to perform in my job. Its crazy that my paid job is happy to accommodate me while highschools continually disrespect their students with wake up times that set them up for failure.
Works for California, I suppose. Where I grew up buses were shared between schools so start times had to be staggered between school levels, and because it was above the 45th Parallel North our days were a lot shorter than the ones in California especially in the winter. So there's only so many practical start times you can have, and somebody's going to be getting up and going to school before sunup or going home during sundown.
While letting yawning teenagers get more sleep seems obvious, the lesser evil is having them get up while it's dark out instead of making 10 year olds walk to the bus stop in darkness, or walk home in twilight. Folks would drive their kids to school if they could, my dad did for me and my little brother as much as possible, but in a household where both parents have jobs, it's not a realistic solution, and that was the reality for most people in the district I lived in.
They should also outlaw busy work. Just wasted human life comes from that
You’ll need to be more specific.
School curricula have changed significantly the last couple of decades, esp. in california.
I would've done much better in high school if I was able to start later. Its absolutely insane this isn't nation wide.
This issue was discussed about 20 days age with 394 comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31711020
Based on an Atlantic piece:
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/06/american-...
Matthew Walker’s book “Why we sleep” discusses how our sleep patterns change as we age and how vital it is for teenagers to get sleep.
Another quicker read is here: Chronotype and Adolescence: Why being an "evening person" as a teenager is disadvantageous [https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/20...]
Basically, even for those who don’t have a night owl chronotype, our sleep shifts back during adolescence. We now know how important sleep is for learning and memory consolidation.
Having schools stagger start time for different cohorts based on preference sounds like the most obvious answer to me to alleviate the problems caused by imposing early start times on all students. One size fits all is hardly ever the best solution.
Elementary school kids have an easier schedule and tend to go to bed early. Teens in high school tend have a more intense schedule ( academics, sports, other activities). The teen body is growing more quickly and they need about 8 to 10 hrs of sleep. I know high schools that start at 7:50 am, that is criminal. Let the teens sleep in..
Used to be bedtime for even high schoolers would be 10 PM or earlier. No computers, one TV for the whole house.
So getting up at 7 to make an 8:30 start wasn't so bad. My high school was a fifteen minute walk, or a similar bus ride in the winter. So it wasn't so bad.
Were you a 90s kid? I remember going to bed between 9 and 9:30 PM in high school, and being up at 6 am - since I went for a morning run, school did not start till 8:30 am..
Even earlier.
Still living the old ways like you see in old TV shows.
This argument makes no sense to me. How is it criminal to start at 7:50am? Kids can sleep early and get their 8-10 hours of sleep just the same.
But they don't - screens being a major culprit.
That's their own and their parents fault though.
I hope this law doesn't prevent early morning extra-curricular classes.
My high school started at 8:20 but we had a 0-period option at 7:15 which is when we were able to take other arts classes like concert band.
I ultimately was in 3 music related classes in high school: concert band at 0-period, jazz band at 4th period, and a small combo band after school 3-days per week.
I loved having a longer day when it meant I could do more of what I wanted to do and also get some flexibility around the school's otherwise rigid schedule but looking back I really appreciate that the longer day was at least partially from starting earlier.
Starting these longer days early meant I still had a lot of free time after school as well to spend with friends even if they were involved in the "standard" day and gave me unstructured free time before my parents came home and before I had to worry about doing things like homework.
The zero period classes are still allowed to happen.
Why did this need to be a law? If it was so obviously beneficial like many commenters make it out to be, why didn't California's public schools already schedule high schools to start later on their own? Something doesn't add up.
My public-schooled daughter (now doing PhD in game theory in UCSD) has a best friend (now doing PhD in meteorology in CalTech). The best friend was home schooled - as they do it now in California, i.e. she participated in a rather intense network of online and offline study groups and community college courses. They compared notes. The conclusion: the quality of the education was the same. But in our - rather good - public school my daughter had to participate in a lot of useless and boring tasks and activities - a tremendous waste of time in her opinion.
So I guess the time that kids spend in public schools can be cut tremendously, instead of its start being shifted from early morning to a bit later morning. But I doubt that useless time elimination can be achieved via legislation.
I'd be interested in seeing some kind of study on this. Before high school, yeah, there's lots of time wasted on watching videos and coloring pages, but I don't remember high school being so bad. Unless the teacher was really lazy, we usually covered lots of material.
If the afternoon nap is the issue, then how about siestas?
In my country, we’d get an hour (or more?) to walk home for lunch every day.
I fully understand that some people are seemingly genetically predisposed to get up later, and in puberty this effect is exacerbated (puberty seems to cause people's circadian rhythm to make them stay up later). I'm probably one of them, looking at my sleeping habits.
So while this will obviously have a positive effect on 'night owls', may it have a negative effect on 'early birds'?
This is going to be hard on highschoolers who have jobs. For many, it will preclude them from working.
And before you say, "Good!", keep in mind that not everyone has the priviledge of an all paid ride from their parents.
I personnally never had any proble getting up early, but I went to bed at a reasonable time. My peers who had trouble in the morning all tended to stay up late.
Reason is based around science. This seems like something that can be easily tested with a high school where you can starts some kids later and measure grade/test performance.
What is the source of the tendency for early start times?
When we follow this up with year-round "Day Light Savings Time" will we move school a second hour forward?
I had bad insomnia in high school and often went to sleep quite late. This probably would have helped me a little.
Does this affect private schools or home schooling?
There are probably few public policies that are so easy to implement, have such consistent research backing and yet so often go ignored than having school start later than 8pm.
Shouldn't this be a local issue?
Nothing will change. Kids will just take advantage of the late start by staying up even later.
That's not what the research says. They aren't just implementing this policy for no reason. It's a complicated topic, but there's really good reason to believe that this will be beneficial.
A few sources, there are tons more:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15402002.2014.96...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1111/sbr.12003
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07420528.2012.65...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1540200070126380...
I dont understand this either. Yes teenagers are tired in the morning and hard to get out of bed. My daughter and her friends go to bed at midnight, 1am, often later.
It doesn't really work like that for those of us who aren't "morning people." I will feel exhausted if I have to get up at 7:30, but will feel amazingly awake with the same number of hours if I can sleep in till 9am. It's not just the number of hours, but how they align to the daily clock.
> Let me guess, you’ve always been a morning person?
Please don't cross into personal attack.
rephrased
Yes, that's much better. Thanks!
> “We know that teenagers are the most sleep-deprived age group, and the cause is our own public policy,” said Joy Wake, who helped lead the efforts of the “Start School Later” group in California.
I really doubt that. Sleep deprivation comes in large part from online behavior (source: personal anecdotes). Whether or not anyone wants to talk about that is another matter.
The new law is unlikely to change the sleep-deprived status of students. Parents taking responsibility can.
Online behavior is not the cause. It might be an aggravating factor, but teenagers have been sleep deprived for a lot longer than the internet has been around [1]. If we want to talk personal anecdotes, I definitely never slept enough as a teenager despite not having internet access at that point. I'd be up reading books and stuff like that.
There are a lot of factors that go into adolescents not getting enough sleep, and it's pretty clear that early school start times are one of them: and one that can be controlled.
Also I think suggesting that parents can take responsibility for the bed time of their teenagers is more than a little unrealistic.
[1] http://www.sleepforscience.org/stuff/contentmgr/files/94a9f6... (from 1990 about sleep deprivation in adolescents)
It is well documented since before the smartphone age that adolescence comes with changes to circadian rhythm (e.g., [0]) which makes teens want to stay up late at night.
It is certainly stronger evidence than personal anecdotes about "teens are always on their phones".
> Sleep deprivation comes in large part from online behavior
Longitudinal studies observing that teenage circadian rhythms shift towards sleeping in later long predate "online behavior".