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| Ann Clark |
Most high schools start their days at 7:15 a.m., but there's been quite a bit of research that shows beginning school that early can have a negative effect on teenagers. A school bell task force has spent the past year studying whether it would be possible to move those back.
The task force was convened under former Superintendent Heath Morrison. When he suddenly resigned, some members of the task force told me they were concerned about where their work would go under Clark's leadership.
Clark said at a board workshop Wednesday that CMS staff was working to put together a report for the school board on what the school bell task force had recommended -- which would include later times for high schools and a shorter elementary school day.
She didn't say when that report would be.
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44 comments:
This is a no brainer! As many as 90 percent of adolescents are sleep-deprived. Starting school later is a proven way to make healthy sleep possible.
Promote legislation to prevent public schools from starting before 8 a.m. Check out our website at startschoollater.net
sign petition at -
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/promote-legislation-to.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=1521139
I plan on teaching high school next school year, and I am all for it. They will also have time to eat a real breakfast instead of rushing to catch the school bus. I would like students to be focused and ready to learn. What are we waiting for?
- A UNC-Charlotte Graduate Student
Finally some serious discussion about this topic!
Too many high school students are sleeping through their first block classes to continue to ignore this any longer...
students are not ready to learn at 7:15am, every high school teacher knows this. Hope the BOE gives serious consideration to changing the school times to benefit the emotional, physical and academic lives of our students.
From- Teacher
How about a story on PTA funds? My children go to a school in 28277 and find it sad that after many fundraisers that the teachers still have to solicit for toner and paper ( in addition to Clorox wipes and paper towels).
4:39 Not sure about serious discussion but at least it's being discussed.
Later start times won't have any effect on Little Johnny's sleep habits nor learning ability.
You can cite all the studies you want.
Students aren't going to be any brighter at 8:15 than 7:15....
Students will not be any brighter but maybe a few teachers will be.
No I aint gonna work on Annie Clarks farm no more.
Bob Dylan
Let the BOE know that you support a change in the bell schedule. Email Ann Clark (a.clark@cms.k12.nc.us). BOE emails available at www.cms.k12.nc.us
Wiley, I usually agree with you but on this one I don't. Students will be more alert and ready to learn. My guess is that over 25% of students are sleeping during 1 block now, and that estimate may be low. There is also a big problem with tardiness. Students would be happier, have eaten a better breakfast and be more alert and productive (at least in 1 block). They also wouldn't have to stand out in the pitch black (safety issue) waiting for buses, and sit in bus lots for 20 minutes with the bus idling waiting for school doors to open at 6:45.
This issue may not be dead "yet".
However people shouldn't get their hopes up either.
Once the CMS Transportation Department provides the BOE with the price tag to shift bus schedules back this will be DEAD.
Many families prefer the early bell don't want it to change.
The bell schedule task force better have their ducks in a row, because the CMS Transportation Department will decide this issue, not the BOE...
1) Follow the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation: no teens start school before 8:00am.
2) No children should be going to school in the dark.
3) Change is not expensive. If you are committed to the health and safety of our children, you will find a way.
anon 9:15 do the parents prefer the early bell, or the students?
we don't live in a agrarian society anymore, our culture has changed to a digital, face paced world. It would make sense to change the HS times now, especially with kids using technology the way they do. I am not a proponent of that, but do understand that tech is not going away. A change is necessary.
1. UNC-Grad Student - that is SO cute... you think kids will sit down and eat a real breakfast before going to school if there is a later start time. Precious.
2. MOST of the arguments we always get against this are transportation, kids with jobs who NEED to work to provide for their families, student athletes and games and such. Just wait, all the Athletic Boosters will throw back their collective heads a cry FOUL!
3. I am for it. I need both hands to count colleagues who have left CMS for charter or other districts due to the early start time and the necessity to care for a young child. I personally lost one of the best team members in the history of the universe...not that I'm bitter.
4. ALL of the research on brain development supports it. To continue to ignore the deluge of supportive data is tantamount to educational malpractice.
Early start times give time for clubs, sports, school meetings and after school appointments. I like it...
one of the reasons we took our kids out of CMS is due to the 7:15 start time. Best decision we ever made.
(cont) and may I add that they have time to shower and eat a complete breakfast before school and work part time and participate in after school sports)!
Fort Mill people.....great schools and our high school starts at 8:30am.
Anonymous at January 22, at 5:01
It's all a part of becoming an adult, being able to take responsibility and take care of themselves. Not all high school students are lazy. Maybe they will just settle with the school breakfast instead. Whatever works, right?
- A UNC-Charlotte Graduate Student
9:24 - A few Task Force members have met with STO for more than 10 hours over the past two years. We have given them many plausible ideas to make changes for very little cost, moving to later high schools could actually save money. STO can make it happen if their boss tells them they have to. If the boss tells them to hide behind the money excuse STO will make that happen as well.
so glad to hear that people are finally talking about this issue. CMS is behind, or wrong, on this one. Pediatricians say teens need 9.25 hours of sleep per night. Let's say a high school student wakes up at 6am (and that's late for many due to bus scheds), that means they would have to be asleep by 8:45pm. That is unreasonable and unrealistic. It's time to change the bell schedule.
Susan Plaza - thanks for your efforts.The Sleep Cycle Study states that the national average that teens go to sleep is 11:38pm. 77% of teens get inadequate sleep.
"From puberty to the end of the teens, the circadian clock is actually programming teens to go to sleep and wake up around three to four hours later than adults. This is a problem, as they are relatively sleep deprived when you wake them up at 8am. It’s something we might want to think about as a society and in education systems, as chronic sleep deprivation is certainly not helping teenagers do their biggest job, which is to go to school." via The Guardian
So 2 more CMS students hit by a vehicle early this morning. Over the past two years, about 10 kids have been in the news from this area (NC & SC)being struck by vehicles early in the morning (before 7:30am). This is ridiculous, and the 7:15am start time is unsafe for our students.
8:55
As usual, the Charlotte Observer doesn't do any reporting of the facts.
This is from WCNC:
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said two Garinger High School students were hit when they ran in front of a truck near the intersection.
Police told NBC Charlotte reporter Richard DeVayne the driver of the truck will not be charged in the incident.
The ran in front of the truck!
I had five kids ranging from elementary to high school cross in front of me last night in a shopping center parking lot, 10 feet from the crosswalk.
A couple of years ago, a woman with two small kids was struck and killed on N. Tryon trying to cross the road with NO median. You could see the crosswalk and the intersection about 20 feet away.
People do things that gets them killed because they are either too stupid, too lazy to walk 10 feet or both.
Again, the ridiculous "start time" issue for schools has no bearing on this.
Wiley, FYI....5 students and a crossing guard have already been KILLED this year (2015) in early morning accidents waiting at bus stops and crossing roads (all before 7am, all different states). The number of early morning car accidents and students being hit by vehicles is quite large. Please get more details at Startschoollater.net site.
3:05
I was responding to the incident in Charlotte to another poster, who may have been you.
The kids at Garinger were at fault and caused themselves to be injured - not the school start time.
If every LEA started school at 9AM across the country, what percentage of accidents involving students in the morning would decline?
I notice there is no talk of the accidents in broad daylight AFTER school is out.
How many accidents involving students were due to their own negligence across the country last year?
Again, I could care less whether you start the school day at 7AM or 9AM, it isn't going to make a significant difference overall.
I'd like to see all extracurricular activities eliminated.
Then students would be able to get their homework/projects completed and be able to get to bed much earlier and get uplater...right?
Here's another statistic:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Association reports an average of 19 school-age children die each year of bus-related traffic accidents. Of those, 14 – or 74 percent – are student pedestrians, as opposed to student occupants. About one-half of those killed were between the ages of 5 and 7. The majority of crashes happen just after school, between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
One student involved death is too many, but to sit here and use their deaths to push a later start time agenda is appalling.
There are a myriad of factors that could cause a child to be hit by a vehicle - in the morning or afternoon.
Wiley, a majority of children in bus related fatal accidents in the afternoons are between ages 5-7. You are making my point.
The number of TEEN deaths is much greater in the morning because the TEENS are going to school in the dark (early mornings) and there is a greater incidence of teen driving accidents IN THE MORNINGS when they are sleepy and rushing to school. These are not Bus related accidents. The younger students that you cite (ages 5-7) aren't out going to school at those times.
Get your facts at Startschoollater.net
5:05...
I suggest YOU post the facts from the site you posted.
I've looked on there and seen nothing but "words talking about not enough sleep and accidents" but no statistics showing say 1,000 teens had wrecks and killed other students due to lack of sleep.
First you say "Over the past two years, about 10 kids have been in the news from this area (NC & SC)being struck by vehicles early in the morning"
You offer no facts as to age, who was driving and how the accidents occurred.
Let me post something from Maine as an example of a child being struck while in the vicinity of the bus in the morning:
...An elementary school student was struck and seriously injured by a vehicle while boarding a bus in Sedgwick recently. The child was later transported to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
That's the kind of info I saw on the site you posted.
I'll be happy to look at charts and graphs from that site if you post the links to them, as I couldn't find them.
As to the above mentioned accident, here is the rest of the story:
According to the Maine State Police, the crash occurred as the child was boarding the bus to school around 7:30 a.m. The bus slowed with its yellow flashing lights to indicate it was preparing to stop to pick up the girl. However, she was not standing outside as usual, so the driver pulled to the side of the road and turned off the yellow flashing lights, an indicator that through traffic was allowed to pass. As a 64-year-old driver was passing the bus, the girl raced out into the street, thinking the bus was stopped for her. (It was, but the absence of yellow flashing lights meant it wasn’t safe for her to cross.)
You can keep skirting the issue all you want, but whether the school start time is 8:30 versus 7:30 in pretty much a moot point when it comes to children being struck by vehicles, as the other data I showed with the majority of cases being IN THE AFTERNOON.
I'll be waiting for your links to the stats showing what actually accurred in your accidents.
I do know off the top of my head a teen killed in Cramerton and a teen killed in Rock Hill last year both walking to school in the early morning hours (vehicles just didn't see them). There are so many stories just like these. The topic is teen students, safety and healthy school hours. I am not talking about elem school students. This is not even mentioning the number of car wrecks with teen drivers in the mornings. Sleep deprivation resulting in increased auto accidents is undeniable.
Wiley, I will get back to you with more stats. Right now I have to work for a living.
8:37
I too work for a living but I don't use it as an excuse.
There is no question children are killed each year AT ALL TIMES OF THE DAY walking, riding a bike, riding in a school bus or riding in a car each year on school days, but the fact a school system may start school at 7:30 versus 8:30 has such a very miniscule bearing on those accidents, it really carries no weight in the debate of school bell times - in my opinion. It has to do more with EVERYONE being mindfull during school hours of what's going on.
As I said earlier, one child death is one too many, just as the several ADULTS who have been killed on bikes and walking in downtown Charlotte over the past two years.
Again, to use children being hit or killed during school hours to push an agenda is appalling.
This is your original comment that caused me to call foul on using accidents as an excuse for early start times:
So 2 more CMS students hit by a vehicle early this morning. Over the past two years, about 10 kids have been in the news from this area (NC & SC)being struck by vehicles early in the morning (before 7:30am). This is ridiculous, and the 7:15am start time is unsafe for our students.
Again, one death/injury is too many, but do the math. 10 accidents in two states over two years within a group of how many students?
Total students in NC & SC is 2,192,437. 10 accidents represents 0.000456% of the total students between the states.
I'm new to this debate but to Wiley Coyote - I don't think using the AM examples to make a point is appalling. What is appalling are the adults that are making the decisions to have students (of any age) waiting at bus stops in the dark, or walking to school in the dark. That is a problem, actually a public safety problem which could be solved by the same adults who are making these decisions.
"The true obstacles aren't sports or bus costs, but the fear of change and failure of imagination. We've found schools in 43 states that have worked out feasible, affordable ways to ensure later, healthier hours by putting health, safety, and learning first. Their solutions didn't require rocket science but, rather, a shift of priorities."
Terra Z. Snider
more high school students would attend the specialized programs at Olympic, Berry and other high school Magnet schools if they did not start at 7:15am. Who makes these policies?
Is this the same person writing all these under different names? The style of writing is exactly the same in all these posts except Wiley and a couple others.
Yesterday another precious life lost on the way to school - 6:40 am, walking to school bus stop in the dark in FL, driver didn't see her. #startschoollater
12:05
Facts...when, where, what school was she going to?
I'm in total support of a later start time for high schools, and shorter days for elementary school children, for all of the same reasons that others (the ones who still have children in school, and therefore, are actually have a dog in this fight). I would like to add that I support it because families who have more than one child in high school, need to be able to work out logistics for getting everyone to work and school. There are many families who have children who go to different high schools due to their interests and aptitudes. It's a logistical nightmare when you are need to get one child to school by 7:15, but yet the other doesn't have to be at school until 9:15! I will say that the high school bus comes through my subdivision about 6:10-6:20. Way too early!!
9;47 and the high school bus will sit in the high school parking lot idling for 20+ minutes before the school doors open. What a waste of my kid's time and district money.
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