New California law requires high schools to start later • Hacker News Board

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#151

Post by ar_lan » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #89

ar_lan wrote: post #80

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 l…

> 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?

This was California.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#152

Post by least » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #102

least wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sta…

"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 stu…

> 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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#153

Post by robswc » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

ravitation wrote: post #131

MBlume wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#154

Post by khazhoux » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

veilrap wrote: post #143

khazhoux wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#155

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

synergy20 wrote: post #21

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…

[deleted]

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#156

Post by MonkeyMalarky » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #135

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#157

Post by hedora » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

adamw2k wrote: post #134

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...

I remember when they cut most of the busses in California. They claimed it reduced their carbon footprint.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#158

Post by dang » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #103

rr888 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#159

Post by eikenberry » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #10

givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

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.

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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#160

Post by robswc » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

ar_lan wrote: post #80

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 l…

"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.