I was wondering when various U. S. high schools began their day. My son is a sophomore and seems chronically tired as his sleep patterns are really at odds with his start time. More research seems to suggest that chronic sleepiness is a big problem and may directly impact physical and emotional health and academic performance.
Poll a comin’
Please choose the time closest to the option listed. Feel free to post how you think this start time impacts your or your kid.
7:55am, actually. That’s for 1st Period. 0 Period starts at 7:00 but is optional.
7:25 for my local high school (which my son went to about 9 years ago), so I chose 7:30 as the closest time.
7:51
7:40, but that was 17 years ago. I always thought that was ridiculously early for teenagers, especially when the middle schoolers started at 8:10 and the elementary schoolers started at 8:40. I thought it should’ve been reversed, as little kids seem to get up really early anyway.
I always spent the first half of the day half alseep.
Mine started at 9:00, so I chose “other”. Interestingly, there’s an article in the Toronto Star about how a local school has discovered that if teens are allowed to sleep in, their marks improve.
Oops, I meant that last one to be 9. I’ve been reading similar studies, which actually prompted this thread.
As a high schooler I started the day at 7:20, so I picked 7:30.
In our town, it is the reverse of what you had. The high school starts at 8:10, the middle earlier and the elementary still earlier.
The timing allows the buses to pick up and deliver K-5 students, then come back a second time for students in grades 6-12.
Seattle High Schools (at least the one my daughters attended) start at 8:30. Middle school almost killed us, starting the day at 7:35.
What times do the schools get out, though? In the town I grew up in, the high schoolers got out the earliest so they could be home to look after younger siblings/babysitting charges when they got home about an hour later.
I went to two high schools. One started at 7 and one started at 9. I think our local high schools here start around 7:20. Most teenagers would do better and prefer to start later. At my early-starting high school we all dozed through the morning classes.
My high school started at 7:30, following up on three years of middle school starting at 7:40. All the schools in the county followed a similar pattern: middle and high schools starting between 7:30 and 7:45 and elementary schools between 8:30 and 8:45.
Though as for teenagers preferring to start school later…in my junior year, my high school arranged a meeting between a bunch of members of the student council and some of the school district officials to discuss things like start time and other issues where they wanted to get student input. The majority of the student council, when questioned, flat-out refused to consider the idea of starting any later than 7:30. :dubious: They were all in sports and didn’t want to have practices going any later. Me, I would’ve gladly embraced band practices running until 6 instead of 5 if it meant I got to sleep in an extra hour, but apparently that made me an oddball or something. Pfft.
I don’t know what time my town’s high school currently starts, but next year it’s going to be 30 minutes later. They’re changing it for two reasons. First and foremost is that the time change will allow them to get rid of a large number of buses by aligning the middle school’s start time with the high school’s so they can share buses. But they are also changing the time because of studies that show that high schoolers do better with later start times.
TheKid starts at 7:10, ends at 2:05.
IIRC first bell was 710. I had to get up at like 530.
Same here. I don’t think I could have managed earlier.
My own first period classes in HS (20+ years ago) began at 8:55am, with “official” class (attendance registration, announcements, etc.) at 8:40am. If there was a 0 period class it began at 7:55am (we had 40 minute periods). I only had a 0 period class for two semesters, which seemed hellacious because I had a 75+ minute trip to get to school. I had to get up at 6am to make that class.
My daughter is in middle school now (not yet high school) and her day begins just after 8am.
The idea of having school start as early as 7am seems utterly ridiculous to me.
When does school finish though? I find it surprising that kids in sports wanted school to start “no later” than 7:30am so practices wouldn’t run on forever. With an 8:55am first period, our last class let out at 2:20pm - plenty of time for sports teams to practice and whatnot and still end by 5pm or so, I would think, which in turn should seem perfect for most families where the parents are working 9-to-5 type jobs.
I remember finding out that my school had a relatively shorter day than others, but my daughter’s school day starts around 8am and she’s done by 2:30pm… If school started at 7:30am then the day would end at what, like 2pm? What is the point of that?
At my HS first bell was at 710, last bell was at ~140 or something around there for the end of 7th period. However, there were 2 magnet programs that had an 8th period, and last bell for that was 230.
What the research suggests is that because of physiological changes that most adolescents go through, it would be a lot more conducive to their learning if the school day started later and ended later than it traditionally does right now at most schools.