Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Teenagers Hardest

Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by jschwartzi on Friday April 01, 2016 @11:06AM (#11405313)

My high school started at 730 am. They always gave bus scheduling as the reason they couldn't have a later start. Basically, the district only had so many buses to allocate for pick-ups, and would stagger start times to make sure the bus count was minimized.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by ACow_Adonis on Saturday April 02, 2016 @12:23AM (#11410201)

"...but then, if that was true, couldn't we be scheduling half of the starts later in the day in order to stagger out the demand for buses even more optimally?"

As you can probably tell, I was not a popular child with teachers/authority in my high school days :P

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by reustle on Friday April 01, 2016 @11:45PM (#11410118)

I mean, it is a valid reason. My small town (4k~ people) did the same, high school started at 7:45am and each bus had both a high school / middle school route, and immediately after an elementary school route. Not only would you need twice as many busses, you'd need twice as many drivers. The cost difference is massive. That said, that doesn't mean they can't bump the start time of all the schools up an hour or two.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by saulrh on Friday April 01, 2016 @11:59PM (#11410158)

There's an even easier solution to that: IIRC elementary school kids are way more resistant to sleep deprivation than teenagers, so you can just flip the schedules around and start elementary school kids before teenagers. Downside is probably then that the more-demanding elementary school kids get home earlier, but I think they're already getting home well before the working parent does.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by dripton on Saturday April 02, 2016 @01:03AM (#11410301)

Our school system does this. I haven't heard any complaints about it. (And we have a lot of entitled parents who complain about everything else.) I'm surprised that more schools aren't switching.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by jacalata on Saturday April 02, 2016 @01:55AM (#11410437)

I've heard that the reason this isn't the default is that parents get far more upset about making an elementary school kid get up and wait for a bus in the dark than a teenager.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by Pingviini on Saturday April 02, 2016 @06:52AM (#11411053)

Makes sense too, America is way too dangerous to have kids wait for buses in the dark. No doubt they would be kidnapped almost immediately.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by jacalata on Saturday April 02, 2016 @11:49AM (#11411924)

I understand the arguments are made about the danger of standing next to a road invisibly (especially in shitty places with no sidewalks) but I'm sure some people are worried about kidnapping!

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by ams6110 on Saturday April 02, 2016 @03:50PM (#11413058)

Heard that argument here when the idea was discussed. The funny thing is that these days (at least for Elementary school) there's always a parent or two who walks their kid to the bus stop and waits with them until the bus comes.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by monocasa on Saturday April 02, 2016 @10:35AM (#11411660)

Can't tell if sarcastic or not.

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Re:Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Tee... by saulrh on Saturday April 02, 2016 @04:11PM (#11413164)

Poe's Law strikes again.

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