“We are trying to make sure we are being cautious and responsible and not moving too quickly.” We’re still having conversations with stakeholders,” said Gopal’s policy director Micharel Illiano. Coughlin (D) introduced two bills in the Legislature to move the start times for high schools no earlier than 8:30am beginning in the 2024-25 school year. Research on school start times - and their effect on students - started in the 1990s as school districts across the country implemented later classes.Įarlier this year, New Jersey State Senator Vin Gopal (D) and Assemblyman Craig J. “What we opposed was the universal mandate which required every school district to adopt the law regardless of individual situation,” Flint said. Troy Flint, the chief information officer of the California School Boards Association, said the CSBA opposed the law when it was being debated in the state legislature, in part, because of the “tremendous hardship for many families that had inflexible work schedules or that needed the student to work for financial reasons … siblings who have childcare responsibilities.”įlint said the California School Boards Association, which represents about 900 schools districts and county offices of education in California, did not oppose the law to change school start times “in concept.” “There’s all this constellation of good outcomes - less depression, less drug use, less cigarette and alcohol use, less premarital sex…when there is a later starting time for the students to get to school, which gives them more sleep in the morning,” Wahlstrom said, adding other outcomes, including performing better at school and involved in less car accidents. Kyla Wahlstrom, a professor of education administration policy at the University of Minnesota, who researches school start times, said the brains of kids who are getting up as early as 6:30 a.m. to get even 8 hours of sleep, which isn’t enough sleep for these early teenagers.” to go to school, they can’t fall asleep at 9 or 10 p.m. “If they have to get up at 5:30 to 6 a.m. “When school starts very early, they end up kind of stuck because they are biologically unable to sleep early,” said Carskadon, who has studied sleep and circadian rhythms for decades. “The school start time, when it’s early, is crushing adolescent sleep,” said Mary Carskadon, director of sleep research and chronobiology at Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island. Related: Amid Surge in Stress During Pandemic, Sleep the ‘Magic Pill’ to Restoring Teens’ Mental Health, Experts Say Researchers who have been investigating the issue for years agree. Most important, Velasco said, was the negative effect on learning she saw early classes had on her children.

I had to rely on my family to help my daughter get to school.” “Having to take my kids to school later is difficult for me. “It’s difficult for parents because our work day starts earlier,” Velasco said. Donate here to support The 74's independent journalism.Ĭindy Velasco, a working California parent with two high school kids, said she supported the later start time law for several reasons, including the difficulty of juggling dropping off her kids for early classes and getting to work on time. Sign up here for The 74’s daily newsletter.

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