It should be simple in a sane society.

School should be for educating children and shouldn't be a government-provided babysitter. A working, functional society should make children a benefit if it wants to exist past a generation, and it should therefore enable and support families so children aren't a personal financial devastation to people and things like education don't have to be overloaded with other functions. We need to fix these social problems.

The reality is otherwise, of course. So, if businesses really depend on public schools babysitting children to have workers or exist, then it's proper that they suck it up and work with the school schedule if they are really that subordinate to it.

> Which means modifying public transportation schedules and business hours.

Only some major cities in the US have public transportation that's really developed, reliable, and useful enough to have this problem--everyone else commutes to work (or is only taking public transportation because they don't have a car). The cities that have the resources to have the system in the first place also have the resources to reschedule rides--it happens anyway for special events, holidays, etc.

> School should be for educating children and shouldn't be a government-provided babysitter.

We're getting a little far afield, but I actually think we should admit that schools do both.

The government should provide childcare—more than it already does—so that both parents in a family to work, which has economic benefits. And since kids need to be educated, it makes sense to teach them at the same time.

> School should be for educating children and shouldn't be a government-provided babysitter.

What are you even proposing? Sending a babysitter to everyone's house for one hour in the morning between when the parents leave for work and when the kids leave for school?

> The reality is otherwise, of course. So, if businesses really depend on public schools babysitting children to have workers or exist, then it's proper that they suck it up and work with the school schedule if they are really that subordinate to it.

So then you're starting everything an hour later anyway and there is no point in setting clocks the other way.

> If school starts later then that means work for adults has to start later too.

Why? Teenagers can get themselves to school can't they?

At 13, when most kids start high school? I'd say a large majority of children at that age are able to (at minimum) wait alone for a school bus†, but not all of them.

I'm very much in favor of giving kids more freedom at younger ages, for privileges well above waiting alone for a bus. But I think it depends on the kid, and schools are for everyone.

† Assuming there is a school bus.

So the very few kids that can't wait at home for a later bus take an earlier bus and wait at school. Not very complicated.

Your district has two buses? We never did growing up, and I don't think it's too common.

No, you have the same bus make the trip twice. If you want to be efficient, have parents request which of the two times they want their kids picked up at so you only need to do part of each loop.

But they don't do that now, and it would take funding. Where is that coming from?

I mean, look, I'm generally politically liberal and I think all these services deserve more resources than they get, but unless it's attached to the DST bill I have zero confidence it would happen in most communities.

Imagine you have a bus coming every day at 7am. Now you move school's start time back 2 hours. You change the schedule so now the bus comes at 9am. What's the bus doing at 7am? Now that bus is sitting around not doing anything at 7am. Adding the second loop means you need to pay the bus driver for 2 extra hours and you need gas for another loop, but these costs are very small compared to what you are already paying to own and operate the bus and employ the bus driver. Assuming a 30 mile route with 80 students at 6 mpg, you're looking at less than 25 cents per student per day, about a 4.5% increase over the current average expenditure per student transported. This can be further reduced if you know which students will be riding in each time slot so you can take two shorter routes.

Do normal city busses not run regularly as well? Or just ride your bike?

It appears you live in the UK, where a majority of people live in cities and towns where public transportation is a viable way for most people to travel most places in their local area.

This is not the case in most of the US. In some places it's because public transportation is not prioritized for funding, but in many it's a matter of low population density making it less practical.

Not everyone lives in cities, or in cities where it's safe for (all) 13-year-olds to ride a public bus in the dark, much less bike.

Are public busses haunted or something? Why are they unsafe when it’s dark? How do you think other countries get children to school? They walk, take a normal bus, ride a bike. They manage a-ok.

For elementary school students sure, but not for high school students.

If you're 13 you're entirely capable of waiting at home for the school bus after your parents have already left for work, no?

Part of the problem is, a lot of districts need to stagger the start times of early/middle/high school, because the same buses are used for multiple groups of kids. So they can't all just show up at 8:30 or whatever is most convenient for parents.

That's actually part of the solution.

Where I grew up in upstate NY -- and I believe commonly across the US -- the buses go out first for middle/high school students, then go back out a second time for elementary students.

The solution is just to swap them! Elementary school kids wake up early naturally anyways and need parental supervision. Get them out of the house by 7:30 so parents can leave for work earlier, and your high schoolers sleep more and grab the 9:00 bus instead.

How does it mean that? We have school buses for a reason, just have the parents go to work first, and then children catch the school bus to school.

We live in the age of COVID. All of society had to change it's daily patterns in a matter of days. Considering this, doing another societal wide tweak to rid ourselves from biannually screwing with our sleep patterns does seem trivial.

All that changing the time on the clock does is change our schedule.

If you'd like to both switch to year-round DST and also move everyone's professional start times an hour later, I'm definitely on board... but you should realize that you've effectively moved us to permanent standard time!