No classes before 8:30 a.m. at California HS: Jeff Spicoli approves

When I lived out there, our schools were in the Grand Canyon Region. Three of the schools were in Flagstaff -- Sinagua has since closed -- but one was in Page, two hours away, another in Cottonwood, an hour or so away, and the last was Chinle, four hours away on the Rez. I used to get into fights with football coaches because we never sent anyone to cover the games in Chinle. I told them they could happily call in their 55-0 mercy-rule win over a rez school that rarely ever won a football game. Chinle eventually dropped to 3A and started playing the other rez schools in the area, so they were more competitive.

 

Starting earlier means the fall semester ends before the winter break. This allows high schoolers to take their final exams when the material is fresher in their minds and not after two weeks off.

 

You should learn something for more than two weeks.

and that is still better college pushing

 

As population boomed in many SoCal areas in the 1990s, districts went to year-round schedules out of necessity since there weren’t enough classrooms . Students were put on tracts with 1/3 of the student body, and teaching staff, off at all times, with everyone off for the traditional holiday breaks.

Teachers didn’t work any more days than they do now, but some did work over the summer. It did cause some havoc for families with children on different tracts and it also meant some athletes were off during their season.

As more schools were built, districts returned to traditional schedules.

 

Our school district went to this this year. I'm involved in several school committees and our elementary principal said when this started coming up that it was going to happen no matter what because it is very important to some important people. So despite all the meetings and surveys and discussions and everything else, I knew it was going to happen.

Our high school moved from 7:30 to 9 and our middle school moved from 7:40 to 8:05. Elementary schools moved all over the place depending on bus routes -- some are as early as 7:30 and some still as late as 9. The one we go to originally changed from 9 to 7:45 and then back to 8:45 allegedly because of transportation but I sort of feel it is because we had more parents than anywhere else whine about it. It would have been rough on our family because while the later time for high school definitely would benefit my high schooler, we're one of those families where our younger kids don't wake up at 5 a.m. so they would have lost a few hours of sleep with the change. I didn't complain but I'm glad our elementary went back. It is weird that my two elementary kids are getting ready at the same time as my high schooler.

That said I always felt it was going to be one of those things that once it's in place people would get used to it and it would be like how it always was. When I was in high school we started at 7:15 and I was bused 30 minutes across the city. I honestly don't know how I survived especially since I've always been a night owl too, but obviously did and did well in school. Early on with this I don't feel my high schooler is as much as a zombie as he was in the past but who knows. It will be interesting to see how he likes things in mid-winter when it's pretty much dark when school gets out, but that's a minor detail.

 

Planting and harvesting take place in the spring and fall, respectively.

 

By the way, Cottonwood is a helluva town around Christmas. Highly recommend.

 

School before Labor Day makes a lot of sense, actually. In our district, school starts on Wednesday, then Labor Day is the following Monday. Kids have a three-day week, then a four-day week, before hitting full-tilt. Teachers love this around here.

 

In districts with a large Hispanic population, it also helps the bottom line. Districts were losing a lot of ADA money when parents would take their kids out of school for Christmastime trips south of the border.

Been a while since I covered schools, but going to a year-round schedule was a good way to earn brownie points with the state of California for new school financing. One district I covered adopted a year-round schedule, got funding for a new middle school (It was previously in portables. The kids called it the trailer park school) and, within a year or two after construction, went back to traditional schedule.

 

I get that, but the extended breaks in the school year initially began due to the harvest, then the timing shifted. Part of that was simply avoiding having school when the weather was hottest in the summer in the days before air conditioning was widely available. The general idea is that it was based on concerns that no longer apply.

 

Teenagers need huge amounts of sleep for healthy brain development. Creating school schedules that recognize this biological fact seems like common sense.

And if you've ever taught a morning class, you've seen why.

 

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