Changing School Start Times

Starting in 2016 Tom Moore and the West Hartford Board of Education began to hear proposals on making school start times later. Support, concomitant with opposition, was immediate as parents, teachers, and students weighed the pros and cons.

The voices of those who really matter, the students, have responded with the following:

Pros:

  • More sleep (which would lead to less stress)
  • Lower chance of being late to class
  • Less hectic mornings

Cons:

  • Sports and activities would go much later; in fact, students might have to miss part of school to compete in competitions
  • Students would have to stay up later to complete work
  • Parents would have to reschedule work or daycare to accommodate for change
  • Budgets cuts have already cut many school programs; would anything else be cut to subsidize for the expense incurred by later start time

Students who participate in sports are some of the most vehemently opposed to this change; they cite their already pressed schedules and how pushing back the end of school would make their practices end even later than they already do. To add, many games, matches, and meets are scheduled for right after school, and these students would be forced to regularly miss their last period classes to participate.

Simply pushing back start times would (generally) benefit all students except those who are heavily involved in extracurriculars. They won’t get a substantial amount more of sleep and changing the time school starts would just push everything else back so students would get home later and, in turn, finish their work later.

On the other hand, late nights for homework are all too familiar for many students. Even if kids are forced to stay up late to complete their work, sleeping later may be beneficial. Anyone could vouch for how waking up at 9am to do something is very different than waking up at 6am to do it; naturally, we are more productive later in the day.

This change, though, would also cost gross amounts of money (estimates upwards of $3,000,000) and with recent cuts to the education budget, many find spending like that hypocritical.

Yes, everyone would love more sleep, but technicalities need to worked out if there is to be unanimous support; the characterchure of this debate has been black and white, but students aren’t as evenly split as portrayed.