We’re battling a sleep loss epidemic. California has a plan to fight it.
July 8, 2022 10:43 AM Subscribe
Unless California also enforces a bed time, I can't see how this will work.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:02 AM on July 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:02 AM on July 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
There’s a reasonable amount of evidence that what most adolescents naturally do is go to bed late and then get up late - this makes the latter less impossible.
posted by clew at 11:06 AM on July 8, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by clew at 11:06 AM on July 8, 2022 [28 favorites]
School schedules are already trash. My wife and I both work, and the school schedules seem to be intentionally designed to cause pain and suffering as it is - I can only imagine the nightmare that single parents go through as it is...
If the issue is lack of sleep, then stop assigning kids 6 hours of homework randomly. My straight-A's kid had assignments that kept her up past midnight quite frequently in Middle School, and it's worse now in High School.
Starting later isn't going to fix the problem.
posted by Chuffy at 11:08 AM on July 8, 2022 [16 favorites]
If the issue is lack of sleep, then stop assigning kids 6 hours of homework randomly. My straight-A's kid had assignments that kept her up past midnight quite frequently in Middle School, and it's worse now in High School.
Starting later isn't going to fix the problem.
posted by Chuffy at 11:08 AM on July 8, 2022 [16 favorites]
It's easier to get out of bed at 8 rather than 7, no matter when you go to sleep. I can't see how this would not work at least partially. Could cause other problems with family's work schedules though.
posted by skewed at 11:09 AM on July 8, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by skewed at 11:09 AM on July 8, 2022 [10 favorites]
My experience with the schools here in Ontario (Canada) are that they start sometime between 8:30-9:00 and once you're in high school if you can arrange a first period spare then you're golden. Hearing about how early schools start in the US always seemed so strange to me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:17 AM on July 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:17 AM on July 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
There’s a reasonable amount of evidence that what most adolescents naturally do is go to bed late and then get up late - this makes the latter less impossible.
I can't stress enough how pointless it is to go to bed and try to get 8 hours of sleep when you are not tired. When you are so full of energy (at 11 p.m.) you could bounce off the walls. You lie there for hours berating yourself and feeling guilty, don't sleep for hours (if ever) and then feel like roadkill and wish for death every time you wake up in the morning, while everyone else around you is bouncing with energy and expecting you to do the same.
Telling me to go to bed earlier when not tired just did not work. I love how we are actually acknowledging here that it's impossible for a teenager to "just go to bed earlier."
So, good for California. I don't know how much good this will do with work schedules and the like, but I always thought it was fucking stupid to have some of the classes at my high school--specifically the advanced math ones!--starting at 7:30.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:19 AM on July 8, 2022 [41 favorites]
I can't stress enough how pointless it is to go to bed and try to get 8 hours of sleep when you are not tired. When you are so full of energy (at 11 p.m.) you could bounce off the walls. You lie there for hours berating yourself and feeling guilty, don't sleep for hours (if ever) and then feel like roadkill and wish for death every time you wake up in the morning, while everyone else around you is bouncing with energy and expecting you to do the same.
Telling me to go to bed earlier when not tired just did not work. I love how we are actually acknowledging here that it's impossible for a teenager to "just go to bed earlier."
So, good for California. I don't know how much good this will do with work schedules and the like, but I always thought it was fucking stupid to have some of the classes at my high school--specifically the advanced math ones!--starting at 7:30.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:19 AM on July 8, 2022 [41 favorites]
Will schools be allowed to have an early-bird period? My high school started at 8am, but in order to take a full academic schedule, I took "early bird" gym which started at 7am. Folks on the swim team were there far earlier--maybe 6am?
posted by epj at 11:20 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by epj at 11:20 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would guess the early start times were probably set to "accommodate" working parents, even though as Chuffy pointed out it still isn't always effective. Also, I live in southern California where there is a commute to just about everything, which means on the days I have to take my daughter to school I have to drop her off early (which she doesn't seem to mind overly much, but I hate for her sake).
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:22 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:22 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh hell I remember high school in Florida in the 80s. 07:30 morning bell. Everyone was so wrecked all the time. I mean now I get up at 6 but I'm in bed by 10 but as a teenager HAHAHA like that ever happened.
I also went to HS in Florida in the '80s. And my high school was a magnet school more than halfway across the city from where I lived. There was a school bus I could take, but the route was winding and crazy long; I think it took about 90 minutes. I usually took a city bus instead, on a more direct route, which let me sleep in a bit later. But if I missed that bus, the next one wasn't until 30 minutes later. My first period teacher took to calling me to ensure that I got up at the right time to make it to her class. I'm still grateful to her for doing that.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:22 AM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
I also went to HS in Florida in the '80s. And my high school was a magnet school more than halfway across the city from where I lived. There was a school bus I could take, but the route was winding and crazy long; I think it took about 90 minutes. I usually took a city bus instead, on a more direct route, which let me sleep in a bit later. But if I missed that bus, the next one wasn't until 30 minutes later. My first period teacher took to calling me to ensure that I got up at the right time to make it to her class. I'm still grateful to her for doing that.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:22 AM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
I would guess the early start times were probably set to "accommodate" working parents, even though as Chuffy pointed out it still isn't always effective.
I'd guess that too, especially since CA is in the odd-man out timezone of PST, 3 hours behind the financial capital of the world in NYC. I think it would be more effective if they did this in tandem with getting rid of the PST timezone.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:25 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'd guess that too, especially since CA is in the odd-man out timezone of PST, 3 hours behind the financial capital of the world in NYC. I think it would be more effective if they did this in tandem with getting rid of the PST timezone.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:25 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Unless California also enforces a bed time, I can't see how this will work.
Speaking as a former California high school student, I was desperate for more sleep but I could never actually fall asleep until 11 p.m., and then I had to wake up at 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. to get to school on time (needed to leave at like 7:15 to get to school in time for the 7:30 bell). It's all well and good to say "go to bed earlier" but, uh, I could not fall asleep at 9:30 p.m., and even when I went to bed at 10 p.m., it was around 11 by the time I actually fell asleep. Apparently that's a developmental thing, so I doubt teenagers can just willpower their way out of it. An extra hour in the morning would have been amazing.
I only realized how much my high school sleep schedule had been hurting me in college, when I could match my natural circadian rhythm to my schedule, and surprise surprise, I got much better sleep and wasn't absolutely wiped by Friday. And I wasn't sleeping in until noon or anything like that in college, I'm talking about going to sleep around 11 p.m. and waking up around 8 a.m. Contrast that with high school, where I was exhausted by Friday afternoon, and slept in until 10 or 11 a.m. on weekends to make up the sleep debt. As the article says, this isn't teenaged laziness, teenagers just literally need more sleep, and they are not getting it with early school start times. A later start time for high school students is unequivocally good news.
posted by yasaman at 11:30 AM on July 8, 2022 [31 favorites]
Speaking as a former California high school student, I was desperate for more sleep but I could never actually fall asleep until 11 p.m., and then I had to wake up at 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. to get to school on time (needed to leave at like 7:15 to get to school in time for the 7:30 bell). It's all well and good to say "go to bed earlier" but, uh, I could not fall asleep at 9:30 p.m., and even when I went to bed at 10 p.m., it was around 11 by the time I actually fell asleep. Apparently that's a developmental thing, so I doubt teenagers can just willpower their way out of it. An extra hour in the morning would have been amazing.
I only realized how much my high school sleep schedule had been hurting me in college, when I could match my natural circadian rhythm to my schedule, and surprise surprise, I got much better sleep and wasn't absolutely wiped by Friday. And I wasn't sleeping in until noon or anything like that in college, I'm talking about going to sleep around 11 p.m. and waking up around 8 a.m. Contrast that with high school, where I was exhausted by Friday afternoon, and slept in until 10 or 11 a.m. on weekends to make up the sleep debt. As the article says, this isn't teenaged laziness, teenagers just literally need more sleep, and they are not getting it with early school start times. A later start time for high school students is unequivocally good news.
posted by yasaman at 11:30 AM on July 8, 2022 [31 favorites]
Dangit, I had to be out on 82nd Ave at 6:30am in the depths of December, inky blackness, wind chill so cold it froze my can of Jolt in the time it took me to cross the Circle K forecourt, so by god kids these days…
….should have it better than me. That’s, like, kinda the whole point of progress.
posted by aramaic at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [35 favorites]
….should have it better than me. That’s, like, kinda the whole point of progress.
posted by aramaic at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [35 favorites]
When I read Why We Sleep in 2020, one of the things he talks about is how our sleep needs change throughout our lives. When we are young--teenage years and below--our bodies require a lot of sleep but our sleep cycles aren't geared towards early to bed/early to rise; he advocates for changing school hours for students to accomodate how they sleep.
As a middle/high school student back in the 90s, I would have loved to gotten more sleep but I always nodded off in first period!
posted by Kitteh at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
As a middle/high school student back in the 90s, I would have loved to gotten more sleep but I always nodded off in first period!
posted by Kitteh at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
My understanding is that the traditional justification for early high school start times was so high school students would get out of school early so that they can a) meet younger siblings at the bus stop b) do extracurricular activities c) work.
More sleep is a good thing for sure! But I do recognize the trade offs for some.
posted by oceano at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
More sleep is a good thing for sure! But I do recognize the trade offs for some.
posted by oceano at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would guess the early start times were probably set to "accommodate" working parents, even though as Chuffy pointed out it still isn't always effective.
Sort of. The early start times are because districts want to hire the smallest possible number of bus drivers. Elementary school has to start around 9, because then parents can take their kids to school or the bus stop close enough to 9 that the parents will then be able to get to work. But then the middle school bus routes have to run a little earlier so the bus drivers can do those routes before they do the elementary routes, and there's no sense in getting the kids to school at 8 and waiting to start the school day at 9. And therefore, high school has to start a little earlier than that, so you get these 7:30 start times.
Or you could just hire more bus drivers, but no one wants to spend money on the schools generally or more bus drivers specifically, so.
posted by Etrigan at 11:39 AM on July 8, 2022 [25 favorites]
Sort of. The early start times are because districts want to hire the smallest possible number of bus drivers. Elementary school has to start around 9, because then parents can take their kids to school or the bus stop close enough to 9 that the parents will then be able to get to work. But then the middle school bus routes have to run a little earlier so the bus drivers can do those routes before they do the elementary routes, and there's no sense in getting the kids to school at 8 and waiting to start the school day at 9. And therefore, high school has to start a little earlier than that, so you get these 7:30 start times.
Or you could just hire more bus drivers, but no one wants to spend money on the schools generally or more bus drivers specifically, so.
posted by Etrigan at 11:39 AM on July 8, 2022 [25 favorites]
Came here to say what Eteigan said. My district recently raised bus drivers to $15 an hour to start aka McDonald's wages. And they are part time positions.
posted by nestor_makhno at 11:46 AM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by nestor_makhno at 11:46 AM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
There is so little societal and professional respect for sleep problems that I was in my 40s before I finally had a doctor's diagnosis and prescription treatment for the sleep phase disorder I've had my entire life. Before that everyone just assumed that if I only tried whatever thing, or tried it a little harder than I had, I would be able to maintain the sleep schedule they wanted me to maintain. The first time this came to a head was when I was a junior in high school. I had the same math teacher for trigonometry I'd had for geometry as a sophomore. In geometry I had been my teacher's favorite. Trigonometry, however, was the first class of the day, and junior year was when biology (teen sleep onset delay) really caught up with me. At least once a week I'd fall asleep on my desk. My poor teacher didn't know what the hell happened to her former favorite student.
I'm glad to see California trying to do the right thing, but people are such assholes about other people's sleep schedules that I expect the backlash to push to overturn this new law within the first year it's in effect.
posted by fedward at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm glad to see California trying to do the right thing, but people are such assholes about other people's sleep schedules that I expect the backlash to push to overturn this new law within the first year it's in effect.
posted by fedward at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
I can't speak for everyone else but I did not thrive with early start times, and I still don't. I'm still not properly awake and functional until much later in the day and I absolutely hated early school start times.
I used to regularly fall asleep in class and then get static from teachers about it and my mental and sometimes verbal response was always something like "I'm supposed to be awake, on campus and in class for extracurricular stuff as early as 6:30 or 7:00 AM, what the heck did you think was going to happen? What is this, boot camp? Why are we even here doing anything before 9:00 AM? You're not even awake and fully present yet, either. Why are you expecting us to be?"
Granted I also used to stay up way too late to do my own thing, including sneaking out of the house well after midnight to go skateboarding and getting stoned and then intentionally planning on napping in class.
Which leads me to one of my favorite high school memories and humblebrags about sleeping in class. Apparently I was loudly snoring and drooling all over my pile of textbooks as a pillow, so my English teacher woke me up to answer a class discussion question on the spot in what was likely an attempt to make an example out of me being a slacker.
So I woke up and smoothly flipped the textbook open to the exact page everyone else was on in one go - a total fluke, really - but I knew the story we were discussing, so I gave my succinct and detailed answer on the story we were analyzing, closed the textbook and put my head down and went right back to sleep.
"Oh, well, apparently you can learn through osmosis." they quipped.
That poor teacher. They didn't know yet that despite looking like a scruffy punk skater that not only was I one of those nerds that read the entire textbooks in the first week of class out of sheer boredom, but that I'd already read every single book of classic literature on our reading lists back in grade school on my own time and library card.
Thankfully we had a nice chat about that and they realized I wasn't a slacker, I was just really bored and unchallenged. So they mainly stopped bothering me like that and started to recommend more challenging or interesting books. Which was probably also more challenging and interesting for them because I'd read most of those, too.
posted by loquacious at 12:02 PM on July 8, 2022 [14 favorites]
I used to regularly fall asleep in class and then get static from teachers about it and my mental and sometimes verbal response was always something like "I'm supposed to be awake, on campus and in class for extracurricular stuff as early as 6:30 or 7:00 AM, what the heck did you think was going to happen? What is this, boot camp? Why are we even here doing anything before 9:00 AM? You're not even awake and fully present yet, either. Why are you expecting us to be?"
Granted I also used to stay up way too late to do my own thing, including sneaking out of the house well after midnight to go skateboarding and getting stoned and then intentionally planning on napping in class.
Which leads me to one of my favorite high school memories and humblebrags about sleeping in class. Apparently I was loudly snoring and drooling all over my pile of textbooks as a pillow, so my English teacher woke me up to answer a class discussion question on the spot in what was likely an attempt to make an example out of me being a slacker.
So I woke up and smoothly flipped the textbook open to the exact page everyone else was on in one go - a total fluke, really - but I knew the story we were discussing, so I gave my succinct and detailed answer on the story we were analyzing, closed the textbook and put my head down and went right back to sleep.
"Oh, well, apparently you can learn through osmosis." they quipped.
That poor teacher. They didn't know yet that despite looking like a scruffy punk skater that not only was I one of those nerds that read the entire textbooks in the first week of class out of sheer boredom, but that I'd already read every single book of classic literature on our reading lists back in grade school on my own time and library card.
Thankfully we had a nice chat about that and they realized I wasn't a slacker, I was just really bored and unchallenged. So they mainly stopped bothering me like that and started to recommend more challenging or interesting books. Which was probably also more challenging and interesting for them because I'd read most of those, too.
posted by loquacious at 12:02 PM on July 8, 2022 [14 favorites]
This is a nice effort on California’s part but it will swing back to the old start times eventually. Parent work schedules won’t change and kids will be dropped off at the same time they get to school now. Administrators are going to lose their minds because they’ll have a bunch of unoccupied kids on campus “wasting precious learning opportunities” or something.
posted by corey flood at 12:14 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by corey flood at 12:14 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Just a 'lil reminder that making safe routes to school for walking/biking and improving public transport can also help get kids to school faster and under their own steam, rather than requiring parents to be late to work.
posted by haptic_avenger at 12:19 PM on July 8, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by haptic_avenger at 12:19 PM on July 8, 2022 [17 favorites]
If someone one day revealed that American life was uniquely designed to cause mental torture, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Getting kids up incredibly early is just starting the pain as early as possible so they’re good little minions who become adults that do the same thing.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:21 PM on July 8, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:21 PM on July 8, 2022 [16 favorites]
This is amazing.
Back when I was in high school, the combination of adolescence, ADHD, stimulant ADHD medication, and the effect of blue light on one's sleep not being well known all contributed to chronic insomnia which then resulted in my chronic tardiness. I almost always missed homeroom, but was never more than a few minutes late for the first class of the day, so all told it thankfully had no great effect on my education.
The school department responded by creating a rule which stated that anyone who was late for half the days in a school year would not be allowed to progress to the next grade or graduate. Didn't matter if you learned everything you were supposed to and tested well, if you didn't follow The Rules well enough you got punished, because the school department never missed an opportunity for a power struggle. Thankfully it took effect after I graduated (I was over the limit by 4 days, my senior year). I consider it my legacy.
This kind of science-based, progressive, accommodating legislation is completely alien to me.
posted by rustybullrake at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
Back when I was in high school, the combination of adolescence, ADHD, stimulant ADHD medication, and the effect of blue light on one's sleep not being well known all contributed to chronic insomnia which then resulted in my chronic tardiness. I almost always missed homeroom, but was never more than a few minutes late for the first class of the day, so all told it thankfully had no great effect on my education.
The school department responded by creating a rule which stated that anyone who was late for half the days in a school year would not be allowed to progress to the next grade or graduate. Didn't matter if you learned everything you were supposed to and tested well, if you didn't follow The Rules well enough you got punished, because the school department never missed an opportunity for a power struggle. Thankfully it took effect after I graduated (I was over the limit by 4 days, my senior year). I consider it my legacy.
This kind of science-based, progressive, accommodating legislation is completely alien to me.
posted by rustybullrake at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd guess that too, especially since CA is in the odd-man out timezone of PST, 3 hours behind the financial capital of the world in NYC. I think it would be more effective if they did this in tandem with getting rid of the PST timezone.
As someone who works in CA--huh?
It is largely irrelevant to us what time someone gets up in New York (or London, Shanghai or Mumbai for that matter.)
Crudely speaking I want to get up when it's light outside, not when it's light in New York.
posted by mark k at 12:45 PM on July 8, 2022 [20 favorites]
As someone who works in CA--huh?
It is largely irrelevant to us what time someone gets up in New York (or London, Shanghai or Mumbai for that matter.)
Crudely speaking I want to get up when it's light outside, not when it's light in New York.
posted by mark k at 12:45 PM on July 8, 2022 [20 favorites]
School schedules are already trash.
School schedules presuppose the existence of an otherwise unoccupied full time stay at home mom.
posted by mhoye at 1:02 PM on July 8, 2022 [17 favorites]
School schedules presuppose the existence of an otherwise unoccupied full time stay at home mom.
posted by mhoye at 1:02 PM on July 8, 2022 [17 favorites]
It is largely irrelevant to us what time someone gets up in New York (or London, Shanghai or Mumbai for that matter.)
It's been largely relevant for me almost my entire career...but mainly because the companies I worked at (on the West Coast) had offices on the East Coast, UK, Germany, India, Japan, etc.
Just looking at sportsball schedules, there's an interesting cultural difference between, say, NFL game times on the West Coast vs. the East Coast...
posted by Chuffy at 1:03 PM on July 8, 2022
It's been largely relevant for me almost my entire career...but mainly because the companies I worked at (on the West Coast) had offices on the East Coast, UK, Germany, India, Japan, etc.
Just looking at sportsball schedules, there's an interesting cultural difference between, say, NFL game times on the West Coast vs. the East Coast...
posted by Chuffy at 1:03 PM on July 8, 2022
As a young person, I naturally woke up around noon. I hated the start of every day for all 12 years of school and another 6 as an undergrad and grad at university. If the 9am college classes took attendance and the tests for those classes weren't incredibly obvious, I'd have failed.
(As an old person, I very rarely am asleep past 4:30 in the last few years. Not by choice. Not because of virtue. I sure as hell wouldn't force it on other people.)
posted by eotvos at 1:29 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
(As an old person, I very rarely am asleep past 4:30 in the last few years. Not by choice. Not because of virtue. I sure as hell wouldn't force it on other people.)
posted by eotvos at 1:29 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just looking at sportsball schedules, there's an interesting cultural difference between, say, NFL game times on the West Coast vs. the East Coast...
3/4 of the US population lives in either the eastern or central timezones, hence why tv scheduling favors them. I'd bet the tv ratings were why the biggest teams in the PAC12 bailed out on a primarily west-coast conference.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2022
3/4 of the US population lives in either the eastern or central timezones, hence why tv scheduling favors them. I'd bet the tv ratings were why the biggest teams in the PAC12 bailed out on a primarily west-coast conference.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2022
Parent work schedules won’t change and kids will be dropped off at the same time they get to school now.
That was my initial thought before even reading the article.
I had one kid who hated the bus because they were picked on so much, so drop off before work it was. (Their may have been some time they were not allowed on the bus for behavioral reasons... long time ago.)
The other has been in school in the district where I instead of where we live for a plethora of reasons. Obviously, no bus for them, either, and get dropped off on my way into work.
If this would have been implemented where we live the options would be:
1. You're old enough. If you want to stay in the district, you'll have to chill out for an hour prior to school.
2. You're choosing to go to the school that's blocks away? Cool. Sleep in and enjoy.
If they were even just a couple years younger, the only option would have been switch schools and leave all their friends.
But, in a 24/7 world, some parents will always be inconvenienced no matter when you start, so...
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:50 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
That was my initial thought before even reading the article.
I had one kid who hated the bus because they were picked on so much, so drop off before work it was. (Their may have been some time they were not allowed on the bus for behavioral reasons... long time ago.)
The other has been in school in the district where I instead of where we live for a plethora of reasons. Obviously, no bus for them, either, and get dropped off on my way into work.
If this would have been implemented where we live the options would be:
1. You're old enough. If you want to stay in the district, you'll have to chill out for an hour prior to school.
2. You're choosing to go to the school that's blocks away? Cool. Sleep in and enjoy.
If they were even just a couple years younger, the only option would have been switch schools and leave all their friends.
But, in a 24/7 world, some parents will always be inconvenienced no matter when you start, so...
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:50 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
If they'd done this 40 years ago my high school GPA would've been a half point higher.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:54 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:54 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Ultimately the long work/school days serve to maintain and exacerbate inequality in the US, and so I'm generally all for anything that pushes back at that.
Work schedules can damn well change too, this (excellent imo) move will help force their hand.
My sympathies for who this will hurt in the short term. The state should offer aid to help with the transition, ideally paid for by fining employers common abuse of workers via clock rules etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:23 PM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
Work schedules can damn well change too, this (excellent imo) move will help force their hand.
My sympathies for who this will hurt in the short term. The state should offer aid to help with the transition, ideally paid for by fining employers common abuse of workers via clock rules etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:23 PM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
Since my wife teaches high school here in CA, I can also say - at least for some of the teachers - they're happy about the changes as well. (Assuming admin doesn't decide they need to have extra staff meetings or something)
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
Hearing about how early schools start in the US always seemed so strange to me.
Indeed. Two or three decades ago when I was a high school student in Ontario, it was 9:00 a.m. starts, and when I hit university, where my first-year psych classes were at 8:30, it was a serious shock to the system. Even in high school I was vaguely aware of American students starting at 8:00 or so, which I found appalling.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:01 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Indeed. Two or three decades ago when I was a high school student in Ontario, it was 9:00 a.m. starts, and when I hit university, where my first-year psych classes were at 8:30, it was a serious shock to the system. Even in high school I was vaguely aware of American students starting at 8:00 or so, which I found appalling.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:01 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
The outrageously long time it's taken for high schools to respond to research about teenage circadian rhythms suggests to me that 16+ year olds should be able to vote, at least on local issues that affect them.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:26 PM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:26 PM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
Between band in the mornings before classes and a computer habit at night, I developed a caffeine pill problem in HS.
While walking home after school, I just sat down and passed out. Luckily, a friend with a car saw me and gave me a lift home.
I think I slept a full 24 hours, I think it was on a Friday. Stuck with coffee and pop after that.
posted by porpoise at 4:41 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
While walking home after school, I just sat down and passed out. Luckily, a friend with a car saw me and gave me a lift home.
I think I slept a full 24 hours, I think it was on a Friday. Stuck with coffee and pop after that.
posted by porpoise at 4:41 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
YES YES FINALLY DEATH TO THE DIURNALS PRAISE THE NOCTURNAL WE CREATURES OF THE NIGHT SHALL FINALLY HAVE OUR TURN MWAHAHAHA (seriously fuck you morning people, kthxbye <3)
posted by symbioid at 4:45 PM on July 8, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 4:45 PM on July 8, 2022 [10 favorites]
These laws are going to be necessary if we're really going to have permanent Daylight Savings Time. Getting up an hour later from Sept - March will basically be the same as getting up at the current time.
posted by subdee at 4:53 PM on July 8, 2022
posted by subdee at 4:53 PM on July 8, 2022
I heard that my school started later inadvertently because it was a charter school and needed to fund its own buses, and it was cheaper (and the bus drivers were available) after the drivers made their normal rounds. I think they started at 8:45 or so then, and I just checked their schedules and looks that they will start at 10 (presumably for the buses).
posted by sincerely yours at 5:06 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sincerely yours at 5:06 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in articles about this is that California is also implementing universal free school breakfast (and lunch) at the same time. Presumably if some kid’s parent has to drop them off early they can eat breakfast at school which should give them a few more minutes sleep in the morning at least.
posted by cali at 5:15 PM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by cali at 5:15 PM on July 8, 2022 [12 favorites]
Just looking at sportsball schedules, there's an interesting cultural difference between, say, NFL game times on the West Coast vs. the East Coast...
This was actually great for me when I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast in my single, football-watching days.
On the East Coast, the first game starts at 1:00 pm., the second one starts around 4:00 p.m., and Sunday Night Football starts at 8:20 p.m. So you hang around all morning, watch football all afternoon and evening, then go to bed.
On the West Coast, you roll out of bed and start watching football at 10:00 a.m., the second game starts around 1:00 p.m., and Sunday Night Football starts at 5:20 p.m. So you have the evening. If you're only following one team and they play at 10, you have the whole rest of the day. Monday Night Football starts at 5:15 p.m., so you can watch the game and still get plenty of sleep.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:27 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
This was actually great for me when I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast in my single, football-watching days.
On the East Coast, the first game starts at 1:00 pm., the second one starts around 4:00 p.m., and Sunday Night Football starts at 8:20 p.m. So you hang around all morning, watch football all afternoon and evening, then go to bed.
On the West Coast, you roll out of bed and start watching football at 10:00 a.m., the second game starts around 1:00 p.m., and Sunday Night Football starts at 5:20 p.m. So you have the evening. If you're only following one team and they play at 10, you have the whole rest of the day. Monday Night Football starts at 5:15 p.m., so you can watch the game and still get plenty of sleep.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:27 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't remember much about K-12 start/end times. I only went to the elementary school for 5-6th grade and either walked or rode my bicycle, even in winter and snow. There's only one middle school and one high school and they're only a couple of miles apart (there's always that 8th grade field trip to the high school that we walked there and back). So same buses, same start times, same end times. There was still usually plenty of time to hang around outside (or in the cafeteria if it's cold before the doors open. Even back then breakfast was available if you needed it and if needed at reduced or no cost (same with lunch).
Sports and after school activities were the things that really required arranging your own transportation. I was lucky enough that grandparents lived a couple of miles from high school. The bus cost like 25 cents or a token (also discounted if needed).
I did wait at the bus stop in the total darkness during winter, but was lucky that from the kitchen table I could see the bus a mile away, even just the lights in the darkness, plenty of time to toss on the coat and pick up the books and walk to the end of the street. And if I missed it, I could wait a while and walk to the other end of the street and catch the bus on it's last leg (don't make a habit of it, but the driver would stop, but then you don't get your choice of seats and miss out on yakking with friends).
It's still going to be a swap, you need X hours per day/year of education. Start later, end later. More shorter days or fewer longer days. More vacation or less vacation.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:47 PM on July 8, 2022
Sports and after school activities were the things that really required arranging your own transportation. I was lucky enough that grandparents lived a couple of miles from high school. The bus cost like 25 cents or a token (also discounted if needed).
I did wait at the bus stop in the total darkness during winter, but was lucky that from the kitchen table I could see the bus a mile away, even just the lights in the darkness, plenty of time to toss on the coat and pick up the books and walk to the end of the street. And if I missed it, I could wait a while and walk to the other end of the street and catch the bus on it's last leg (don't make a habit of it, but the driver would stop, but then you don't get your choice of seats and miss out on yakking with friends).
It's still going to be a swap, you need X hours per day/year of education. Start later, end later. More shorter days or fewer longer days. More vacation or less vacation.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:47 PM on July 8, 2022
California is also implementing universal free school breakfast (and lunch) at the same time
...at least in my district this is now year-round. Like, literally drive up to the school HQ during summer and get free food. I *think* they require a kid of the appropriate age (or they punt you to a different program) but I'm not actually sure -- I don't really read those emails from my govt so much as just scan them.
posted by aramaic at 6:57 PM on July 8, 2022
...at least in my district this is now year-round. Like, literally drive up to the school HQ during summer and get free food. I *think* they require a kid of the appropriate age (or they punt you to a different program) but I'm not actually sure -- I don't really read those emails from my govt so much as just scan them.
posted by aramaic at 6:57 PM on July 8, 2022
YES YES FINALLY DEATH TO THE DIURNALS PRAISE THE NOCTURNAL WE CREATURES OF THE NIGHT SHALL FINALLY HAVE OUR TURN MWAHAHAHA (seriously fuck you morning people, kthxbye
Speaking as someone who has always been inclined towards nighttime but who is dealing with menopause issues like being unable to sleep past 5am these days... you have fun with that. I hope it lasts for you.
posted by Lexica at 7:51 PM on July 8, 2022
Speaking as someone who has always been inclined towards nighttime but who is dealing with menopause issues like being unable to sleep past 5am these days... you have fun with that. I hope it lasts for you.
posted by Lexica at 7:51 PM on July 8, 2022
What happened to that idea of -what was it called- 'inside-out' instruction as the next wave?
Where the 'homework' was to watch a recorded lecture at your own pace; and class time was to review that info and do equations and worksheets together, etc.
I'm especially thinking of things like mathematics, where a lot of people end up frustrated because they can only ask the instructor to repeat themselves so many times; then they go home and stare at a sheet of equations, alone and uncomprehending. Repeat until the student believes they're "not good at math".
posted by bartleby at 9:27 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
Where the 'homework' was to watch a recorded lecture at your own pace; and class time was to review that info and do equations and worksheets together, etc.
I'm especially thinking of things like mathematics, where a lot of people end up frustrated because they can only ask the instructor to repeat themselves so many times; then they go home and stare at a sheet of equations, alone and uncomprehending. Repeat until the student believes they're "not good at math".
posted by bartleby at 9:27 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
My understanding is that the traditional justification for early high school start times
It probably varies by locale, but in the places that I've lived, the general justification was because there aren't enough buses to have all the schools (elementary, middle, and high) start at the same time.
They give elementary schools the latest start time, because of the perceived increase in safety for young kids waiting for the bus or something. It's never been entirely clear. (It seems like maybe it would be safer to have the youngest kids get on the bus first, when their parents are more likely to still be home?)
I've always thought that the start times should be elementary, middle, and then high school, in that order. Start the youngest kids earliest and let them out earliest, and then let students 'graduate' to progressively later start times as they move up.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:06 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
It probably varies by locale, but in the places that I've lived, the general justification was because there aren't enough buses to have all the schools (elementary, middle, and high) start at the same time.
They give elementary schools the latest start time, because of the perceived increase in safety for young kids waiting for the bus or something. It's never been entirely clear. (It seems like maybe it would be safer to have the youngest kids get on the bus first, when their parents are more likely to still be home?)
I've always thought that the start times should be elementary, middle, and then high school, in that order. Start the youngest kids earliest and let them out earliest, and then let students 'graduate' to progressively later start times as they move up.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:06 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
About 8 years ago I was talking to my nephew who was in high school at the time. He was on the junior football team, and his practice started at 6am. As in, being ready, in full gear, on the field at 6am. This was a kid who was doing it for fun; he had no intention or dream of going pro. I thought this was absolutely absurd. The school bus didn't run that early, so his parents had to take him to the school at like 5:30am. He had to wake up at 4:45am. Just to practice football! Including weekends sometimes!
This was at a great school in a nice suburban Chicago area. He had 2 parents who could accommodate this. But I don't know how most families could ever do this. And yes, he had homework that kept him up until late pretty often... he was a great student. Combine that with teenage hijinks and I guess he hardly slept at all.
I never had to do anything like that in high school in the 1980s. I did some after-school activities like art and theater, but we were done by like 4:30pm at the latest. And it wasn't every night.
I don't have kids but schedules like these are completely bananas to me.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:09 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
This was at a great school in a nice suburban Chicago area. He had 2 parents who could accommodate this. But I don't know how most families could ever do this. And yes, he had homework that kept him up until late pretty often... he was a great student. Combine that with teenage hijinks and I guess he hardly slept at all.
I never had to do anything like that in high school in the 1980s. I did some after-school activities like art and theater, but we were done by like 4:30pm at the latest. And it wasn't every night.
I don't have kids but schedules like these are completely bananas to me.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:09 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Telling me to go to bed earlier when not tired just did not work. I love how we are actually acknowledging here that it's impossible for a teenager to "just go to bed earlier."
Well, ok, but personal responsibility doesn't come into play at all? I mean, I get how loaded that phrase is, but I think it plays at least some part in all of this. If you drink a lot of caffeine and energy drinks at, say, 9 p.m., as many teenagers do, then yeah there will be a problem falling asleep. Or even if those drinks don’t come into play, there’s the endless smartphone time, Netflix binging, etc. Staring at screens before bed will screw with your sleep cycle.
Not all teens do this, and there are those who do that still wake up just fine. But there is almost certainly a significant portion of kids who indulge and—surprise surprise—have a hard time waking up and a hard time being a student. I disagree that it’s impossible for kids to go to sleep earlier. It may be hard, it may involve a big shift in lifestyle, but for most people it’s not in fact impossible.
posted by zardoz at 7:29 PM on July 9, 2022
Well, ok, but personal responsibility doesn't come into play at all? I mean, I get how loaded that phrase is, but I think it plays at least some part in all of this. If you drink a lot of caffeine and energy drinks at, say, 9 p.m., as many teenagers do, then yeah there will be a problem falling asleep. Or even if those drinks don’t come into play, there’s the endless smartphone time, Netflix binging, etc. Staring at screens before bed will screw with your sleep cycle.
Not all teens do this, and there are those who do that still wake up just fine. But there is almost certainly a significant portion of kids who indulge and—surprise surprise—have a hard time waking up and a hard time being a student. I disagree that it’s impossible for kids to go to sleep earlier. It may be hard, it may involve a big shift in lifestyle, but for most people it’s not in fact impossible.
posted by zardoz at 7:29 PM on July 9, 2022
My high school in Florida in the 1990s started at 7:15 AM. As a student taking a lot of honors and AP and dual-enrollment classes, with poor executive function, I also often had homework that would take me 6 hours to do.
Changes like this can’t come soon enough, IMO. No one should have to be anywhere that early.
posted by verbminx at 9:06 PM on July 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Changes like this can’t come soon enough, IMO. No one should have to be anywhere that early.
posted by verbminx at 9:06 PM on July 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I disagree that it’s impossible for kids to go to sleep earlier. It may be hard, it may involve a big shift in lifestyle, but for most people it’s not in fact impossible.
… and your degrees in neuroscience and childhood development were issued by …?
posted by fedward at 9:12 PM on July 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
… and your degrees in neuroscience and childhood development were issued by …?
posted by fedward at 9:12 PM on July 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
fedward--do you think that kids staying up late by choice--perhaps fueled by caffeine and the effects of blue light--has no bearing on this issue? I'm not a neuroscientist, that's true. Do I need to be one? How about I just simply link to the work of scientists on this issue?
I mean, if my kid chooses to stay up late--and does he ever--his morning tiredness is his own fault (and to a degree my own) and I don't just lash out and blame the schools for their early schedule. Later start times may be a good idea, but for the time being I and my wife and my son know what the deal is: school starts at X o'clock, so he should take measures to be ready for it.
posted by zardoz at 4:44 AM on July 10, 2022
I mean, if my kid chooses to stay up late--and does he ever--his morning tiredness is his own fault (and to a degree my own) and I don't just lash out and blame the schools for their early schedule. Later start times may be a good idea, but for the time being I and my wife and my son know what the deal is: school starts at X o'clock, so he should take measures to be ready for it.
posted by zardoz at 4:44 AM on July 10, 2022
I disagree that it’s impossible for kids to go to sleep earlier. It may be hard, it may involve a big shift in lifestyle, but for most people it’s not in fact impossible.
Impossible is such a strong word that this is a pointless distinction. Obviously it's not impossible -- if we really wanted to we could just have government agents go into every teenager's house at 8:30pm and involuntarily drug them with powerful soporifics. It would be very expensive and lots of them would die, but the survivors would get to sleep early every night.
It being difficult is enough.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:46 AM on July 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Impossible is such a strong word that this is a pointless distinction. Obviously it's not impossible -- if we really wanted to we could just have government agents go into every teenager's house at 8:30pm and involuntarily drug them with powerful soporifics. It would be very expensive and lots of them would die, but the survivors would get to sleep early every night.
It being difficult is enough.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:46 AM on July 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
How many teenagers have jobs? How many have to have jobs because one parent’s wages aren’t enough to raise even one child these days? How many teenagers have parents who work multiple jobs for the same reason and therefore aren’t around to supervise them as much as we’d all like? How many kids live in noisy, overlit neighborhoods that have the same effect as caffeine or watching Netflix?
Why do you feel the need to punish all of those kids because you have an idea of teenagers making bad decisions (which is basically the definition of the word “teenager”) to the point that you’re against making the tiniest of changes, one so small that you can’t even be bothered to mention a single bad effect other than apparently it’s better to just punish them for drinking Coke?
posted by Etrigan at 6:02 AM on July 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Why do you feel the need to punish all of those kids because you have an idea of teenagers making bad decisions (which is basically the definition of the word “teenager”) to the point that you’re against making the tiniest of changes, one so small that you can’t even be bothered to mention a single bad effect other than apparently it’s better to just punish them for drinking Coke?
posted by Etrigan at 6:02 AM on July 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
do you think that kids staying up late by choice--perhaps fueled by caffeine and the effects of blue light--has no bearing on this issue?
I don't think it has the bearing you seem to think it does. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a policy statement about school start times for adolescents (linked in the Vox article) that leads with this heavily cited stretch of text:
posted by fedward at 7:00 AM on July 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don't think it has the bearing you seem to think it does. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a policy statement about school start times for adolescents (linked in the Vox article) that leads with this heavily cited stretch of text:
The reasons behind the current epidemic of insufficient sleep are complex and interrelated. From a biological perspective, at about the time of pubertal onset, most adolescents begin to experience a sleep–wake “phase delay” (later sleep onset and wake times), manifested as a shift of up to 2 hours relative to sleep–wake cycles in middle childhood. Two principal biological changes in sleep regulation are thought to be responsible for this phenomenon. One factor is delayed timing of nocturnal melatonin secretion across adolescence that parallels a shift in circadian phase preference from more “morning” type to more “evening” type, which consequently results in difficulty falling asleep at an earlier bedtime. The second biological factor is an altered “sleep drive” across adolescence, in which the pressure to fall asleep accumulates more slowly, as demonstrated by the adolescent brain’s response to sleep loss and by a longer time to fall asleep after being awake for 14.5 to 18.5 hours in postpubertal versus prepubertal teenagers.You may also want to refer to this summary of a workshop on adolescent sleep patterns and needs:
The research also showed that even with restricted sleep students felt more alert in the evening, encouraging the tendency to stay up late again (Carskadon and Dement, 1981). If additional tests of sleep latency are carried out at 8 and 10 p.m., a student who struggled and dozed through the early afternoon becomes energetic and internally stimulated in the evening, often past midnight.Note the 1981 date on that particular study predates the smartphone and the nationwide spread of Starbucks. Without getting too much farther into my own personal history with this issue I'll point out I didn't have a smartphone (seeing as how it was the 80s) and I didn't drink coffee (or even much in the way of caffeinated soda; I preferred Sprite), and somehow I still had a problem getting to sleep. Smartphones and coffee might be exacerbating the problem but they are not the root of it, and the problem will still exist if you take them both away.
posted by fedward at 7:00 AM on July 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
I also did not have caffeine or smartphones or my own computer in high school and still was not tired as early as I was required to be.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:24 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:24 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
During my time I was in high school, Seattle Public Schools ditched school buses for most high school students (we got a city bus pass instead) and as a result of that I seem to remember our start time was pushed back from around 7:35 to 8:00. It was nice, but it wasn't enough. I just looked and my former high school now starts at 8:55. I'm so happy for those students. I do wonder what the impact of the later end time is on after school sports is, though.
posted by mosst at 6:02 PM on July 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mosst at 6:02 PM on July 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
NYT: “Asking a teenager to be awake and trying to absorb information at 8:30 in the morning in some ways is like asking an adult to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning,” Matthew Walker, a University of California, Berkeley, neuroscience professor, told NPR."
Experts say that chronic sleep deprivation among teenagers has been linked to worse academic performance and mental and physical health problems as well as substance abuse and drowsy driving. Because of the litany of public health risks, the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for school to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., as even 60 extra minutes of sleep per night can have major benefits in staving off long-term health issues.
“The effects of that one hour is something they will be feeling as 40-year-old adults,” Dr. Sumit Bhargava, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford University, told The New York Times. “When you give them the gift of increased sleep time, it is the biggest bang for the buck that you can think about.”
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Experts say that chronic sleep deprivation among teenagers has been linked to worse academic performance and mental and physical health problems as well as substance abuse and drowsy driving. Because of the litany of public health risks, the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for school to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., as even 60 extra minutes of sleep per night can have major benefits in staving off long-term health issues.
“The effects of that one hour is something they will be feeling as 40-year-old adults,” Dr. Sumit Bhargava, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford University, told The New York Times. “When you give them the gift of increased sleep time, it is the biggest bang for the buck that you can think about.”
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by seanmpuckett at 10:59 AM on July 8, 2022 [11 favorites]