California Pushes Back School Start Times; Should NYC Follow?
A later start to the school day would most likely mean a later finish. Photo Credit: Kalin Yuen
By ZILOLA ASHURBOYEVA
On October 11, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed a bill requiring high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. in hopes of improving student performance and attendance.
All schools in the state must put the new law in place by July 1, 2022, and some by January 1, 2020, the New York Times reported. However, some schools have already made the change.
Students at Midwood who start Period 1 - usually juniors and seniors - must come in at 7:15 in the morning, and students who come in 2nd period must arrive by 8 a.m. What type of impact does this have on students?
“I can’t focus properly so early in the morning,” stated Rabia Asif ’21, who starts 1st period with an AP class. Students should “start later, at like 8:30, because that’s when you actually wake up.”
Student Christina Chau ’21 agreed. She added that “if [school] started later, I would get more sleep because currently I only get two hours.”
An article by the Washington Post states that there are around 3 million public middle and high school students in California. By starting school later, between 80% to 90% will benefit from this law as it is aimed at improving students’ health, safety, and academic performance. So, why can’t Midwood change its student scheduling hours?
Mr. Albert Peterson, the Assistant Principal of Programming and Attendance, said there were two main reasons for that. First is space issues and second is safety issues.
“We have 4,100 students, and in order to give all students enough classes to graduate, we need to make split schedules,” said Mr. Peterson. In addition, if students were to start later, they would also end later. That situation is not very desirable, especially during late fall and winter.
Furthermore, Mr. Peterson added that early schedules are a “part of the learning process,” since most colleges and jobs require their students and employees to start early in the morning. So this gives students a good chance to “adapt” to that lifestyle, and “some students thrive in the morning,” he said.
On top of starting early, many students also attend extracurricular activities - some late into the evening. Pushing back the school day would push back these ending times even further.
It could be worse. South Korean students have an extremely long school day. They start school before 8 a.m. and attend other extracurricular activities into the night. This coincided with a high rate of suicides among adolescents in the area, according to an article by the New York Times.
Nelly Zhang ’21 - who lives in Staten Island - starts school at 8 a.m. and has recently been working at a lab at Brooklyn College from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m. She said she manages her schedule by making sure “I finish all my work on time. I try my best to not let anything pile up and do it last minute.” And thankfully, she added, “as for my mental health, it’s okay.”
This brings us back to the question: What if we started school later? Jackie Chen ’22, who starts his day with AP Chemistry at 7:15 in the morning, said his performance and grades “would be better because I would have more energy to listen in class.” This statement was echoed by many students.
Sarah Tse ’21, who is not a morning person, said that starting school later would make it “a lot easier, especially for people who live far away.”
However, as said before, starting later means ending later. So, how can we fix that issue?
Although it’s not easy to find a solution, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. For example, we could start later, but to make sure students don’t have to leave later, we could shorten periods, such as going from 45 minutes to 30 minutes per class. This would mean less daily instruction, which would bring up a different controversy. However, we must find a middle ground somewhere and do what we can to ensure both the health and safety of our students.