Live data from Hacker News

New California law requires high schools to start later

apnews.com

51–60 of 267 posts

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#51
post #45
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? We're talking high schools - which I believe in the US is about age 15 onwards, nothing to do with parents

How do you think this has nothing to do with parents? You do realize that 14-17 is still a minor?

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?

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#52
post #23
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#53
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 avo…

Two hours is plenty of time for mischief, and skipping school isn't the concern. Source: Made a lot of mischief in my youth.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#55
post #42
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#56
post #16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#57
post #26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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, n…

> 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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#58
post #24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

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.

Re: New California law requires high schools to start later

#60
post #28

> “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-de…

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)

Post reply on HN