I'm a city kid who went to neighborhood schools, so explain the school bus thing to me, please. How far are people living away from school and how many stops are needing to be made that children have to be at the bus stop at 5:45? That is just insane to me.
from the furthest point it could take some students 40 min to get to my hs by car. I can't imagine how long their bus ride was. And we were never allowed to drive ourselves to school.
My high school started at 845 and went until about 330. I still had a part time job, usually I started at 4 or 430 and worked until 8 or 9. That was a common "shift" for students in our area. To be honest, I didn't realize how many schools started earlier !
I think people need to realize a few things: 1. Instructional time requirements are far different now than when we were in school. In my state there is an additional 20 minutes of required class time a day since I graduated. That changes everything. It affects bussing schedules and staff hours. It pushes bus drop off for someone much closer to rush hour which is bad. 2. Even families with no socioeconomic issues struggle when elementary kids don't leave the house before the parents. After school care is much easier to provide than before care because the labor pool is bigger. College kids, day care workers, etc. In a lot of schools the union won't allow (and the teachers wouldn't want) teachers to serve as before care.
I think people need to realize a few things: 1. Instructional time requirements are far different now than when we were in school. In my state there is an additional 20 minutes of required class time a day since I graduated. That changes everything. It affects bussing schedules and staff hours. It pushes bus drop off for someone much closer to rush hour which is bad. 2. Even families with no socioeconomic issues struggle when elementary kids don't leave the house before the parents. After school care is much easier to provide than before care because the labor pool is bigger. College kids, day care workers, etc. In a lot of schools the union won't allow (and the teachers wouldn't want) teachers to serve as before care.
What time are most people needing to be at work? A 7:30 start means teachers and other school staff have to have their kids somewhere by 7 at the latest so someone must be working mornings, right?
I still think there should be a way to make this happen. It should be doable somehow. Everyone goes to school. I really think shifting the time for optimal learning supercedes so many other things.
Post by orangeblossom on Sept 1, 2014 6:57:05 GMT -5
I think it definitely needs to start later.
You can't have it both ways and expects kids to start school early, participate in after school activities and/or work, do hours of homework, get the proper amount if suggested sleep, and be productive and alert the first few hours of class.
ETA: added hours of homework. Proboards at my first post, and I forgot that.
I think people need to realize a few things: 1. Instructional time requirements are far different now than when we were in school. In my state there is an additional 20 minutes of required class time a day since I graduated. That changes everything. It affects bussing schedules and staff hours. It pushes bus drop off for someone much closer to rush hour which is bad. 2. Even families with no socioeconomic issues struggle when elementary kids don't leave the house before the parents. After school care is much easier to provide than before care because the labor pool is bigger. College kids, day care workers, etc. In a lot of schools the union won't allow (and the teachers wouldn't want) teachers to serve as before care.
What time are most people needing to be at work? A 7:30 start means teachers and other school staff have to have their kids somewhere by 7 at the latest so someone must be working mornings, right?
I still think there should be a way to make this happen. It should be doable somehow. Everyone goes to school. I really think shifting the time for optimal learning supercedes so many other things.
In my experience, teachers kids in the same school as parent stay in their parent's classrooms until they can leave. Kids in other schools get dropped off or out on the bus by the other parent. Damn if I know what single parents do.
I think school schedulers are so beholden to so many rules. My mom schedules a middle school. It is insane. The logistics of arranging kids in appropriate classes under a pedagogically sound system while making sure to get the required instructional hours in is hard enough. Then finding start times that allow for two bus cycles (high school/middle school and elementary) of 1.5 hours each while decreasing the amount of outside care required for elementary school kids is craziness.
You know what would ease the problem cutting back on summer break. You could have less hours in a day then.
You know who isn't going to let that happen? Parents and unions.
I think people need to realize a few things: 1. Instructional time requirements are far different now than when we were in school. In my state there is an additional 20 minutes of required class time a day since I graduated. That changes everything. It affects bussing schedules and staff hours. It pushes bus drop off for someone much closer to rush hour which is bad. 2. Even families with no socioeconomic issues struggle when elementary kids don't leave the house before the parents. After school care is much easier to provide than before care because the labor pool is bigger. College kids, day care workers, etc. In a lot of schools the union won't allow (and the teachers wouldn't want) teachers to serve as before care.
What time are most people needing to be at work? A 7:30 start means teachers and other school staff have to have their kids somewhere by 7 at the latest so someone must be working mornings, right?
I still think there should be a way to make this happen. It should be doable somehow. Everyone goes to school. I really think shifting the time for optimal learning supercedes so many other things.
The only time I took a bus was in HS. School started at 7:29 and was exactly 2 miles from my house. I had to be at the bus stop for 6:47 pick up. We then wound around town and just made it on time. I stopped taking the bus because I could sleep 15 minutes later if I walked to school. Our local regular public HS was also a magnet HS for performing arts and students came from the whole county for that, so some kids were definitely on the bus by 5:30:5:45 to make the rounds locally then make the 30-60 minute trip to the school.
I'm a city kid who went to neighborhood schools, so explain the school bus thing to me, please. How far are people living away from school and how many stops are needing to be made that children have to be at the bus stop at 5:45? That is just insane to me.
It's usually high schoolers who need to be at the bus stop that early. Many of them still go to so called neighborhood schools but in suburbs and shit, there is often one high school for a widespread area. This is especially true in areas with far flung gated communities.
PTS's school day is 7:45 - 3:00 and will stay that way through at least 8th grade. That's the same school day I had in high school. I had high school swim practice from 4:30-6:30 in the evening and then when that season was over, club practice was 5:30-7:30. So the school activities argument has never made sense to me.
The kids who work argument does make sense, but indicates another problem to me- that of too many children living in poverty. So much so that we have to give it consideration when planning the school day and place their academic success secondary to their being able to function in the understood cycle of poverty. So I acknowledge that particularly poor kids have to work after school. I don't think any other kids SHOULD be working on school days, so I'm dismissing their objection out of hand and I think the fact poor kids have to work is cause to examine another aspect of our culture, and not cause to place poor kids' education secondary to well, ANYthing else. They need that education to work more than anyone.
How are teenagers supposed to not hold p/t jobs? I mean, are parents supposed to just hand them spending money? Almost everyone I knew in HS, regardless of their parents' financial situation, worked a part time job in addition to doing school and some sort of extracurriculars. And any retail job I've held (not that many, but Gap, a grocery store and Starbucks) required at least one weekday shift in addition to weekends. Any I've applied to has said the same right on the application.
At least when I was growing up the attitude was that if you wanted a car at 17 you bought it and paid insurance and gas and if you wanted spending money of any sort that was also on you, not your parents. And this was true of friends whose parents were multimillionaires down to kids whose parents struggled (the exception being kids whose parents needed their earnings to run the household).
All of the teens I knew/know who have part time jobs were middle class. Low income teens who had jobs were parents who had dropped out. The middle class teens were trying to make money to pay for half a car or some xbox of something.
And I don't know anyone whose teenaged job paid the bills at home. It was always to buy things for themselves that their parents were unwilling or unable to provide for them.
All of the teens I knew/know who have part time jobs were middle class. Low income teens who had jobs were parents who had dropped out. The middle class teens were trying to make money to pay for half a car or some xbox of something.
And I don't know anyone whose teenaged job paid the bills at home. It was always to buy things for themselves that their parents were unwilling or unable to provide for them.
Just anecdotally of course.
That's interesting. That wasn't my experience, but of course, everyone has different experiences. I knew a lot of kids whose jobs helped pay bills at home. Everyone else it was for whatever spending money they wanted or needed and there were no allowances or anything.
I will say that thanks to this thread I'm thinking back and realizing my HS had a lot of programs to help low income teens and I never recognized them for what they were. There was free childcare on site for students with children. They had to take childcare as an elective for one period a day and there were two teachers overseeing the program but the students ran the daycare for credit one period a day while being able to finish HS. We also had a coop program that helped place you in a job. Senior year you went to school the first half of the day to complete graduation requirements then the second half of the day you went to work but it had to be a career type position (auto mechanic, dental assistant, medical assistant, etc) and the job agreed to mentor you and give you transferable skills. The kids I knew who took advantage of this also had assistance getting a job that was willing to work with the school.
My first HS in Tx was like this, 9:15-4:15. My HS in MA was 7:23-2:18. I preferred the latter, because I am the rare person who has always really been a morning person, probably aided by early morning swim practice. But with a late start I just compensated by going to bed by 10 and doing my homework in the morning before school so it was fine. I do remember my sister going from waking up super early in middle school, to wanting to sleep later in high school.
I'm a city kid who went to neighborhood schools, so explain the school bus thing to me, please. How far are people living away from school and how many stops are needing to be made that children have to be at the bus stop at 5:45? That is just insane to me.
Our district has around 111,000 students. Bus transport times and distances are determined through state law. If a student is zoned to a school two miles from their home, the district is obligated to provide bus transportation. At Taylor's old school, she had to be at the stop at 7:25am, but school began at 8:00am. We lived maybe 2.11 miles from her school, and there were no sidewalks or safe route for students to walk to get there.
There were I think two more stops before Taylor was dropped off at school. The number of stops needed is determined by the number of students living near the school. This year, Taylor's middle school has no buses because the vast majority of kids live within the 2 mile radius or are transfer students attending the optional school. This means it becomes the parent's responsibility to get the child to and from school.
Our district has three bell times to accommodate for the number of students and schools. (We have around 205 schools). If a school has a 7:15 bell time, and the bus unloads at say 7:05, they now have an hour to pick up students and get to the next school. So, if you have a bus with at least 10 stops, you need to factor in the number of minutes to pick up kids and avoid traffic. Most of our buses use different routes that keep them off of main thoroughfares to avoid heavy traffic.
There was much discussion this year about shifting to a two bell time system and allowing HS students to come later, but the cost was pretty big - I want to say upwards of $50 million. The district would have to either buy buses or contract with a service provider for more buses because the three tier system allows you to utilize the buses more efficiently.
Another thing re:neighborhood schools. Our system has closed several underutilized schools over the years. The neighborhoods are pretty much decaying in certain areas leaving former 800-1000 student capacity buildings to schools with less than 250 students. Those schools are closed, and the students are zoned to nearby schools that may not be in walking distance. As a result, the district has to provide transportation.
As population in cities shift to outlying areas, so do schools. We've built schools in areas that were once rural when I was younger.
As population in cities shift to outlying areas, so do schools. We've built schools in areas that were once rural when I was younger.
That's what we're doing here. We are also countywide, not city based so aside from having neighborhood schools out in the sticks, we have charters and specialty schools that everyone in the county is eligible to attend.
This isn't new. I'm a high school counselor, and this research is not the first of it's kind by any stretch of the imagination. I know when I was in graduate school from 2004-2006 we talked all about this and actually got into research on the counter-points, none of which are academically related.
The strongest counter argument I have seen is from lower income families who truly do rely on the income of their teenaged children to make ends meet. With the traditional 7-2 day, they can get 4-5 hours of work in each day, making their hours part time. It makes me sad that kids so young have that burden, but it is a reality in many communities. So when the proposals are made to shift the day a few hours, those families have a strong voice.
The other arguments: sports and extracurricular, little kids at bus stops too early, etc. don't hold as much weight.
I went to school in Fairfax County from K-12 and my mom still teaches there. This comes up every single year, and gets shot down for various reasons every year. Change is SO HARD, especially when $$ is an issue. If they could just get more busses, this would be a whole heck of a lot easier. But working with cuts, a wide socioeconomic range, and a very sports-conscious community you have a LOT of backlash to the idea of changing what has always been.
If it were up to me, from what I've seen in my experience as a counselor, they would shift the day and then work with the lower income kids on a one-on-one basis to figure out how to schedule them accordingly. We, as counselors and administrators, can tailor schedules for those kids. I know I'd be willing to make that effort.
How are teenagers supposed to not hold p/t jobs? I mean, are parents supposed to just hand them spending money? Almost everyone I knew in HS, regardless of their parents' financial situation, worked a part time job in addition to doing school and some sort of extracurriculars. And any retail job I've held (not that many, but Gap, a grocery store and Starbucks) required at least one weekday shift in addition to weekends. Any I've applied to has said the same right on the application.
At least when I was growing up the attitude was that if you wanted a car at 17 you bought it and paid insurance and gas and if you wanted spending money of any sort that was also on you, not your parents. And this was true of friends whose parents were multimillionaires down to kids whose parents struggled (the exception being kids whose parents needed their earnings to run the household).
I worked on weekends and in the summer. I didn't have a car until I was 19. This hysteria about kids needing a job to develop a work ethic or needing a job for spending money is honestly the dumbest fucking aspect of the late school start debate. I am SO not worried about the middle class kids and their after school jobs. I do not think they should be working after school. You develop your work ethic through your school work which should be receiving top Billing anyway. What kind of message do we send kids by telling them they should sacrifice their school work so that they can learn the importance of hard work through the Limited or McDonalds? Secondly, this spending money thing is absurd. Use your summer job money. If that doesn't cover it and parents don't consider it an expense worth categorizing as a "family expense" chances are, a sixteen year old just doesn't need it and all the better that the lesson there is, you don't need everything this culture if consumerism and excess tells you you need.
No, I am sympathetic to the cycle of poverty issue of poor kids needing jobs and then sacrificing school work which then relegates them to a life of low paying jobs. That is a completely different issue than middle class kids who just want spending money and half to take at least one week day shift to get it.
Okay, that's a fair point. DH worked summers only and it worked out well for him. I knew fewer teens who didn't work than who did, but it's also true that many were working for wants not needs (I was one of the few who worked out of necessity; I helped my mom cover groceries and a few other bills in addition to providing free childcare that she needed). Our family wasn't low enough income to qualify for assistance of any sort, but were in a HCOL area and on the edge, so every penny helped.
I will also say that a lot of kids I knew had parents pushing them to work because they were hanging out from 2:30 to midnight doing nothing or drugs. Not extracurriculars and definitely not concentrating on academics (even if they should have been). Their parents usually felt that getting a sucky job would help motivate them to stay in school and put effort in.
Post by StrawberryBlondie on Sept 1, 2014 9:46:30 GMT -5
My parents wouldn't let me have a job till the summer before my senior year because they wanted me focused on school and extra curricular. They only let me keep it during the school year so I could have it the next summer, too, but then only let me work weekends and the very occasional week night.
Okay, that's a fair point. DH worked summers only and it worked out well for him. I knew fewer teens who didn't work than who did, but it's also true that many were working for wants not needs (I was one of the few who worked out of necessity; I helped my mom cover groceries and a few other bills in addition to providing free childcare that she needed). Our family wasn't low enough income to qualify for assistance of any sort, but were in a HCOL area and on the edge, so every penny helped.
I will also say that a lot of kids I knew had parents pushing them to work because they were hanging out from 2:30 to midnight doing nothing or drugs. Not extracurriculars and definitely not concentrating on academics (even if they should have been). Their parents usually felt that getting a sucky job would help motivate them to stay in school and put effort in.
We were pretty broke too and I get that side of things. But I think this issue of teenage sleep needs serious prioritization. We have know FOR DECADES that teens who don't get enough sleep have academic issues, behavioral issues, and health issues including increased incidence of obesity. We also know that those things decrease where the school day starts later. So to me it's a question of priorities. I understand that it is unlikely we will increase the number of busses so that kids don't have to be out at the stop for as long and I understand that it is unlikely we will be willing to address childhood poverty in a way that will help those kids who have to work to pay bills. But we SHOULD and that'd what I'm arguing. We SHOULD because our priorities should be the health and education of these children. So the middle class PT job argument gets my hackles up because that is an argument suggesting our current priorities are just fine. And they aren't.
If the school day went from 9-4, the loiterers would have less time to loiter anyway, you know. And maybe their parents should sign them up for some music lessons or a Spanish immersion class or some shit. And anyway, when it comes to education reform, you can't save every kid, but you shouldn't be stacking the deck against them. There will always be do-nothings, but some kid who would be a good student but for being too tired to concentrate in first period and being too tired to do homework at night, that kid shouldn't be sacrificed just because someone wants to make their kid get a part time job so they stay out of trouble after school.
That's all a really fair point. I honestly am a fan of a later start and would love to rearrange society to allow for it. As I also said upthread, it sounds like my HS had much better programs to help at risk kids (free childcare during the school day as well as a coop program where less academic students were getting on the job training for part of the school day and it was paid and left them trained for a stable, career-path job) than the average school and I would love to see programs like that expand. I knew quite a few people who did the coop program and it basically gave them more hours in a day (since they could count work towards school hours and only work 12-4 or 6 instead of 3-9 or 10) and allowed them to earn a decent paycheck and have time to sleep and get homework done in addition to having job training and connections upon graduation. That program definitely helped turn around graduation rates and grades for those who were in it. Shifting to later school hours would not significantly impact that and might even lead those students to higher success in their training programs since they are better rested.
And I would love to see HS giving every child the best shot at a stable future. I agree that a later start time that better aligns with teenagers natural sleep cycles would be an absolute necessity towards that goal, as would fewer hours unsupervised after school.
I wonder what it would take to get there. It is an issue that needs solving and I'm not sure how to do so.
I will also say that a lot of kids I knew had parents pushing them to work because they were hanging out from 2:30 to midnight doing nothing or drugs. Not extracurriculars and definitely not concentrating on academics (even if they should have been). Their parents usually felt that getting a sucky job would help motivate them to stay in school and put effort in.Â
All the more reason to shift the school day. Those kids were staying up until midnight anyway. Have them go to school 9-4. One extracurricular activity until 6, and suddenly there isn't a ton of unsupervised free time because mom and dad get home at the same time as junior.
Post by lasagnasshole on Sept 1, 2014 11:50:32 GMT -5
As for what it takes to get there? It takes a school board willing to listen to science and to entertain solutions.
Seriously. If a district in Texas, which you know looooooves its HS football and is basically the home of suburban sprawl, can do this, other places can figure out. If they want to.
As for what it takes to get there? It takes a school board willing to listen to science and to entertain solutions.
Seriously. If a district in Texas, which you know looooooves its HS football and is basically the home of suburban sprawl, can do this, other places can figure out. If they want to.
See my other point. Our local board was certainly willing to do this - the problem was funding.
When nationally, school districts are seeing funding dwindle or are facing massive budget cuts this can't just happen. Locally, our school district is still owed $56 million in funding that was taken back in 2008. It's 2014 and not a red cent has been paid to the district. Our district was given capital improvement dollars for the first time in years. The system also saw a property tax increase for education for the first time in 8 years.
My district's story isn't uncommon. It's a national trend and something like school bell times sounds so simple until you need to figure out logistics. Shifting older kids to later time and little kids to earlier times means a kindergarten student is now on the bus stop when it's dark outside.
These things sound super fantastic, until you get in the weeds to figure it out along with the money to handle it.
This isn't new. I'm a high school counselor, and this research is not the first of it's kind by any stretch of the imagination. I know when I was in graduate school from 2004-2006 we talked all about this and actually got into research on the counter-points, none of which are academically related.
The strongest counter argument I have seen is from lower income families who truly do rely on the income of their teenaged children to make ends meet. With the traditional 7-2 day, they can get 4-5 hours of work in each day, making their hours part time. It makes me sad that kids so young have that burden, but it is a reality in many communities. So when the proposals are made to shift the day a few hours, those families have a strong voice.
The other arguments: sports and extracurricular, little kids at bus stops too early, etc. don't hold as much weight.
I went to school in Fairfax County from K-12 and my mom still teaches there. This comes up every single year, and gets shot down for various reasons every year. Change is SO HARD, especially when $$ is an issue. If they could just get more busses, this would be a whole heck of a lot easier. But working with cuts, a wide socioeconomic range, and a very sports-conscious community you have a LOT of backlash to the idea of changing what has always been.
If it were up to me, from what I've seen in my experience as a counselor, they would shift the day and then work with the lower income kids on a one-on-one basis to figure out how to schedule them accordingly. We, as counselors and administrators, can tailor schedules for those kids. I know I'd be willing to make that effort.
Do most other HS's have an internship option to work? At my HS you could leave for the last period of the day and go to a job for credit. I know you had to write up what you learned, etc. Most students only did it one semester, but depending on your course load you could do it more than that.
I completely agree. We have a 9:10 start one day a week and the difference is amazing.
Our district claims "transportation" as an issue. Bullshit.
Having seen some preliminary numbers on this, transportation is an issue. There is a cost associated with the number of buses a district needs and how to structure the use of buses between schools.
What you have to account for is the time between loading, unloading, traffic and the distance between the schools.
Transportation for a school district is a huge cost. And while plenty of folks say they are for it, they balk at increased tax bills and the need to cut programs to offset transportation costs.
Right, I hear you. But swapping start times for elementary and secondary would mean swapping the routes. It wouldn't change the time, cost, or resources needed, but the order in which they are provided, right?
And even if it did cost more, I come from that crazy mindset of putting the needs of kids before an extra $10/year or whatever it would cost the average taxpayer.
This isn't new. I'm a high school counselor, and this research is not the first of it's kind by any stretch of the imagination. I know when I was in graduate school from 2004-2006 we talked all about this and actually got into research on the counter-points, none of which are academically related.
The strongest counter argument I have seen is from lower income families who truly do rely on the income of their teenaged children to make ends meet. With the traditional 7-2 day, they can get 4-5 hours of work in each day, making their hours part time. It makes me sad that kids so young have that burden, but it is a reality in many communities. So when the proposals are made to shift the day a few hours, those families have a strong voice.
The other arguments: sports and extracurricular, little kids at bus stops too early, etc. don't hold as much weight.
I went to school in Fairfax County from K-12 and my mom still teaches there. This comes up every single year, and gets shot down for various reasons every year. Change is SO HARD, especially when $$ is an issue. If they could just get more busses, this would be a whole heck of a lot easier. But working with cuts, a wide socioeconomic range, and a very sports-conscious community you have a LOT of backlash to the idea of changing what has always been.
If it were up to me, from what I've seen in my experience as a counselor, they would shift the day and then work with the lower income kids on a one-on-one basis to figure out how to schedule them accordingly. We, as counselors and administrators, can tailor schedules for those kids. I know I'd be willing to make that effort.
Do most other HS's have an internship option to work? At my HS you could leave for the last period of the day and go to a job for credit. I know you had to write up what you learned, etc. Most students only did it one semester, but depending on your course load you could do it more than that.
I know my HS had a program like that, but it was only for seniors. I don't remember if it changed or they got rid of it when they switched from block scheduling to an 8 period day. It don't think it had to be vocational, but I'm sure a lot of farm kids took advantage of it their senior years. This was mainly because we didn't have enough teachers/electives for most seniors to get a full day out of. They solved most of this by pairing up with a nearby CC and paying for students to take distance college classes.
I think that's a bigger concern - after school activities and jobs.
That's my issue- I don't think school should be structured around sports or jobs. It should be the other way around. Learning is the priority, imo.
I worked and played 2 sports, so I get the importance of both, but still. I think our hours were 8:30-2:45ish?
I haven't read every one else's responses but this was always my feeling. If education is valued it should come first.
Then I try to remember that I was a fairly rich kid who never had a high school job or played any sports ( let alone requiring one for scholarship reasons). So maybe I come from a place of privilege on this issue.
Having seen some preliminary numbers on this, transportation is an issue. There is a cost associated with the number of buses a district needs and how to structure the use of buses between schools.
What you have to account for is the time between loading, unloading, traffic and the distance between the schools.
Transportation for a school district is a huge cost. And while plenty of folks say they are for it, they balk at increased tax bills and the need to cut programs to offset transportation costs.
Right, I hear you. But swapping start times for elementary and secondary would mean swapping the routes. It wouldn't change the time, cost, or resources needed, but the order in which they are provided, right?
And even if it did cost more, I come from that crazy mindset of putting the needs of kids before an extra $10/year or whatever it would cost the average taxpayer.
There are generally speaking far more elementary schools than either middle or high schools or even both. It's not a one to one swap.
Having seen some preliminary numbers on this, transportation is an issue. There is a cost associated with the number of buses a district needs and how to structure the use of buses between schools.
What you have to account for is the time between loading, unloading, traffic and the distance between the schools.
Transportation for a school district is a huge cost. And while plenty of folks say they are for it, they balk at increased tax bills and the need to cut programs to offset transportation costs.
Right, I hear you. But swapping start times for elementary and secondary would mean swapping the routes. It wouldn't change the time, cost, or resources needed, but the order in which they are provided, right?
And even if it did cost more, I come from that crazy mindset of putting the needs of kids before an extra $10/year or whatever it would cost the average taxpayer.
Swapping the routes means that a 5 yr old will stand on the bus stop instead your 15yr old. Now, show of hands, how many of you want to stand outdoors at 6am before the sun comes up with your 5 yr old? And who's going to be home at 2:00pm with your 5 yr old?
I think ideally, people want a 2 bell system. 8 am and 9am, but the end will always come down to resources. I also laugh at the idea that some folks are happy to shell out an extra $100. Because two cities over from me, the newly formed Lakeland School District is having a hard time selling a property tax increase to the VERY people who voted to form a new school system. Oh - I can't even throw race into this equation because Lakeland is pretty much 90% white.
Like so many things, theory sounds better than practice. Looking next door, I'm here to tell you folks say one thing until it becomes an actual $$.
I don't think the opening bell time makes a difference as long as there's not parental supervision. Kids won't suddenly get more sleep. They will stay up later on FB, texting, playing video games, etc. It's the same as adults; if you know you have more time to stay up, you will, just like I do in the summertime.
In my experience, older students are pretty much "done" by 2:00, and I'd rather there be a half hour left of school than ninety minutes. There's also a lot to be said for having a big chunk of time at the end of the day for family time, leisure, doing homework...
There are generally speaking far more elementary schools than either middle or high schools or even both. It's not a one to one swap.
Also, that's not how raising tax revenues work.
I just want to be clear here though that there are reasons why it doesn't happen and there's the question of whether it should. The funding issue is there for everything from busses to pensions. If people cared about education, they would pay for it, including swapping the elementary busses to the earlier pick up and the upper grades to the later pick up. The total number of bus routes would remain a constant (and we actually need more in Amy case). Also, an earlier start time for grade Achilles makes it more likely parent won't have left yet for work and could even drop their kids off on the way or stand with them at the stop. Older kids don't need that supervision (ideally) so having them head off to school second instead of first makes a lot of sense even from that perspective.
I get it. Trust me I do. I'd love for people to pony up and pay more. But, I live in the world of realistic expectations when it comes to this debate. And I saw it play out during a meeting along with the transportation numbers that said - this is impossible given the circumstances.
In a system where the district, citizens and funding body decide that this is doable - it will happen. That becomes a very different reality in a system where there are no extra dollars to be had. That is the case for my system. We've endured cut after cut with no real extra funding. Telling people to value education and then finding an extra $200 million just doesn't happen because we all think it's a good idea. Should it in theory? Certainly, but again, the reality of municipal budgeting and getting citizens to say ok to a tax increase is an entirely different ball game.