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California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

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Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#231

Post by bobthecowboy »

jclulow wrote: post #215
yellowapple wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and pay for uniforms It's bad enough that the school enforces a school uniform in the first place, let alone has the nerve to make parents pay for it.

There are lots of benefits to uniforms. In NSW (Australia) public schools have uniforms, and parents pay for them. Low income families are generally able to obtain financial assistance through some grant, or fundraising programme; sometimes through donated uniforms. Uniforms actually help with socio-economic gaps: everybody dresses the same, regardless of whether you can afford more expensive status symbol clothing o…

I'm not super knowledgeable on the topic of uniforms, but don't other things just become the status symbol? Phones, laptops, cars, purses? A lot of these things already have premium brands that most people on this site could name trivially.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#232

Post by Alupis »

arcticbull wrote: post #209
Alupis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about later and later bed times? This is the real factor. When I was a kid - it was in bed, lights out and go to sleep at 9pm the latest during school nights - strictly enforced by my parents. Now I regularly see small children (< 10 years old) out at the store past 10pm or 11pm on school nights.

This is also anecdotal. While it will of course vary from person to person, it's been conclusively shown teenagers circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults. Sleeping later and waking up later in teenagers is biological and it doesn't do anyone good to fight it.

While what you say is true, does pushing the start time of class back 30 minutes or 1 hour make any difference? I'm skeptical.

When I was a teen, on weekends with no where to be, I'd regularly sleep until noon, 1pm, sometimes 2pm or later. Should we push school back until, say, 4pm through 10pm-12am? Doubtful that's good either.

On some level, it teaches kids that they have to be someplace at a certain time, regardless of what they might want... You know, obligations and responsibility.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#233

Post by gundmc »

rockinghigh wrote: post #222
gundmc wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying teachers don't deserve to be paid more, but I was surprised to see how much Bay Area teachers make. It's public info for public schools.[1] In Santa Clara County, with no experience, starting salary is $71000. It increases on a schedule each year up to over $131000. Honestly, the job security, structured pay, and 3 months vacation per year is a pretty darn good deal. [1] - https://www.santaclarausd.org…

You picked an outlier. Most schools districts in the Bay Area (including San Francisco) have starting salaries for teachers in the $50k-$60k range. And in my experience, teachers work a lot more than 40 hours a week. I picked 3 randomly below: Redwood City: https://www.rcsdk8.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?modul... San Mateo: http://www.smfcsd.net/en/assets/files/Employment%20and%20HR/... San Francisco: https://…

Thanks for the additional data points!

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#235

Post by slykat »

Alupis wrote: post #232
arcticbull wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also anecdotal. While it will of course vary from person to person, it's been conclusively shown teenagers circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults. Sleeping later and waking up later in teenagers is biological and it doesn't do anyone good to fight it.

While what you say is true, does pushing the start time of class back 30 minutes or 1 hour make any difference? I'm skeptical. When I was a teen, on weekends with no where to be, I'd regularly sleep until noon, 1pm, sometimes 2pm or later. Should we push school back until, say, 4pm through 10pm-12am? Doubtful that's good either. On some level, it teaches kids that they have to be someplace at a certain time, regardle…

> While what you say is true, does pushing the start time of class back 30 minutes or 1 hour make any difference? I'm skeptical.

Did you read the article? They have done several studies to show a significance difference in academic performance with a slight shift. That's the whole reason for this change.

"One three-year study (pdf, p.1) of 9,000 high-school students across three states, for example, found that academic performance, “including grades earned in core subject areas of math, English, science and social studies, plus performance on state and national achievement tests, attendance rates and reduced tardiness show significantly positive improvement with the later start times of 8:35 AM or later.”

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#236

Post by sologoub »

shakna wrote: post #163
corey_moncure wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? It's difficult for me to imagine it, or the family that has two working parents yet legitimately can't fit $40 into the budget over the entirety of their child's career in school.

> Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? Any assignment that makes use of a proprietary software that the school has purchased. That is to say that there are plenty of times when a student _must_ use X software that only runs on platform Y, and the school very rarely takes into account what platforms the student may have available to them. I…

That’s why Chromebooks are a lot better choice - $150 buys you a reasonable example and you also don’t have to worry about kid breaking it and loosing weeks of work.

Example: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-11-6-chromebook-intel-cele...

And for older kids, there’s Linux support, etc.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#237

Post by crooked-v »

gundmc wrote: post #212
_coveredInBees wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…

I'm not saying teachers don't deserve to be paid more, but I was surprised to see how much Bay Area teachers make. It's public info for public schools.[1] In Santa Clara County, with no experience, starting salary is $71000. It increases on a schedule each year up to over $131000. Honestly, the job security, structured pay, and 3 months vacation per year is a pretty darn good deal. [1] - https://www.santaclarausd.org…

> 3 months vacation per year

This perception is usually pretty inaccurate. There's no time given during the school year for essentials like curriculum development, continuing education requirements, training new teachers, etc, so that eats up time during the summer 'break'.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/myth-o...

> Klem says she’s spending the rest of her summer this year attending meetings, developing school curriculum, helping train new teachers, and contacting families of her students, among other tasks. Past summers, she says, have been equally busy: graduate-school coursework to complete her master’s degree (which isn’t required but can mean higher pay), classroom organization or relocation, and so on. While some of these responsibilities come with a stipend, teachers say they’re relatively negligible given how much time they take—no more than $1,000.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/hold-on-before-you-get-too-j...

> As an educator you constantly have to be on top of trends, so it’s not like it’s just six weeks of me laying by the pool,” said Sara Holloway, a fifth-grade English language arts teacher from Monongahela, Pa.

> “You are taking classes in the summer, or you are reading material, or you are conferencing or blogging with other teachers, you are planning for the next year,” she said.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#239

Post by sologoub »

A lot of the comments are focusing on the burden for the parents, but there is also negative impact on the kids from less wealthy backgrounds.

My last 2 years of high school, I went to 7am first period to be able to get out early enough to put in 6-8 hours of work and still have enough time for homework. That extra hour and a half was critical to making it work.

Without the work and extra cash, I probably would have had a lot different experience and may have not stayed motivated for college/grad school/etc. But more importantly, this income let me feel on the level around much wealthier kids who didn’t work or worked for their parents businesses. Confidence is priceless at that age!

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#240

Post by protomyth »

reaperducer wrote: post #189
mc32 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets. There likely are some parents who can’t afford those, but those parents are vanishingly small. Often times parents think that they “provide” the child and the school does the rest. Good parents, poor or otherwise know that it’s mostly on the parents to guide the kids.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets. As someone who occasionally has to work with the working poor, I can tell you this is completely false. Here's one example: I work in healthcare. We can't send text messages to people about their medical conditions, etc... because a startling number of working poor families not only have only a flip phone, but that phone is shared among…

Yeah, I think people would be amazed by the number of people that have StraightTalk plans and phones from Walmart. A lot of $30-$50 phones paying as they go.
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