If a high schooler needs to be driven to school by their parent, there is a serious street safety/transit problem which should be solved.

Most of America is a serious street safety/transit problem which should be solved.

A plurality ~35% of high school students are driven to school, though not necessarily by a parent.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739456X1772514...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/how-dista...

EDIT: This is nationwide, there's reason to believe this percentage is probably higher in California.

I was one of those kids. Only because taking the bus was a pain in the ass and my parents loved me enough to put up with it, at least until I could drive.

Bus was awful. Kids had no respect for the driver or other kids. Plus it easily tripled the commute time.

Yes. The bus my kids would have to take to High School served both middle and high school. They would have been on the bus for about 40 minutes and arrived at school 30 minutes before the first period started. School was about 15 minutes away by car.

If I drove them (or when they were old enough to drive on their own), they could sleep nearly an hour later than if they had to take the bus. Since it wasn't much of a detour on my way to work, that's what I did.

Did you live in an area sparsely populated by families with children that matched your child’s age, or did you choose (or forced to use for desegregation) a school that was far away? The fact that transit was an option makes me think it was the latter.

I spent most of my school aged years in an city with a mediocre transit system. Most parents did not drive their kids to school except in very bad weather. Also, most people attended the school closest to their home. This meant the mediocre transit system used buses for special school routes usable only by students. I rarely took this bus as I preferred to bike or walk in about the same amount of time the bus would take.

Where I live now, something similar happens at least for the kids that are bussed across town to achieve a somewhat consistent racial mix in all schools.

Has everyone driving their kids to school eroded the viability of walking, biking, or taking a school bus?

> Bus was awful.

Exactly. Similar to the problem many adults have trying to get to work by bus, it often doubles or triples a commute time.

Yep. I'm all for people choosing their transit... but even if I'm not driving, 3x-ing the commute just isn't something I could do.

Ok, well it's not going to be solved. So what's your view on it now?

A school day ending at 2pm already has this issue - this just splits it between the start and end of the day. For some parents that may be better, for some it may be worse. There's also the possibility for before-school activities or in-school breakfast.

I think the bigger issue is unsupervised minors. Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school. I suppose this could be solved by pre-care, but that make this bill completely moot.

If you can't trust a highschool aged kid to go to school on their own, early start times aren't going to change anything. Heck, you can drive them to the building and watch them walk inside and they'll just walk right out the back. Delinquent kids dgaf. Now for the not totally delinquent but still up for sketchy borderline behaviour kids, finishing early and having couple hours between the end of class and when their parents come home from work is when all the dumb stuff happens. Sleeping in and getting home around the same time as their parents leaves a lot fewer opportunities for hijinks.

If the kids really have a hard time waking up (the point t of this law), then it's possible they over sleep. Many parents might not be comfortable with their kid cooking breakfast unsupervised too.

If they're in after school activities and/or have a job, then it seem unlikely that they would get into trouble anyways. Pushing the time back will make these after school activities unfeasible for many, and limit opportunities.

I'm failing to reconcile the image of a hypothetical teenager who is both so irresponsible and incompetent that you can't trust them to get up or make breakfast on their own without burning down the house while simultaneously being capable of having an after school job.

If you can't leave them unsupervised in the mornings, surely they can't be left alone after school either. Net net, there's going to be some time they're unsupervised. May as well let them get some rest. Maybe the lack of sleep deprivation will even encourage better decision-making.

They don't need to be the same kid.

After school has after school activities. It also typically means they don't need to cook if the parents are home for dinner.

Use an alarm. Eat cereal. Use the microwave. These are all non problems that any half functioning adult or high school kid can think of solutions to.

If the kids are really so sleep deprived that we need a law about it, then it's likely some will sleep past their alarms.

Dictating diet by limiting options doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

You know what else is a non-problem? The current start times.

I see the argument you are making and just want to suggest that this law is trying to help out the kids who are both capable of getting to school on their own regardless of start time, who would also benefit from the extra sleep. I suspect that this is the majority of the population of teenagers. Public schools are not really a free market where kids get to pick and choose based on features like start times. Most are selected because it is the only practical option for the family's means. In the absence of market pressure, using legislation to improve people's lives isn't wrong.

If this is such a contentious issue, then why not allow the parents in each district to decide? That's really what I'm getting at - the state is making this decision for everyone by usurping the parents representation at the district level.

If it is such a contentious issue, then why go through all the extra time and effort to decide it for each and every district? Parents still have a voice and vote at the state level do they not?

Because what works for one district might not work for another based on the demographics and culture of the location.

Their voice at the state level is highly diluted by non-interested parties. Voting for school board members tends to be more focused and doesn't have as many people voting based on non-school issues like you would for a general representative.

These are high school students they are going to be living on their own soon. I think being able to feed themselves is a skill they should probably develop.

One could argue that being at school at 8am is a valuable skill they should since most jobs require that (or earlier) start time.

my ten year can cook breakfast, on a gas stove too. and besides there are plenty of breakfast options that don't require cooking. worst case, they reheat in the microwave what parents cooked earlier.

if a 15 year old can't be unsupervised at home, then their parents have different problems besides letting them cook for themselves.

>Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school

As an anecdote, 100% of my class was coming to the school and back without being supervised since age 8. This was in 90s and not in the US, but the gap of "mature enough to go to school" between my experience and the statement feels a bit high, somehow.

Yep. And it’s 100% normal for early prior year school aged kids in Japan to cross town on the subway on their own. The American obsession with helicoptering their kids all the way through their first job is super weird and unhealthy.

Could we just stop? Please? I know it's cool to talk shit about Americans constantly but it gets old. I want to expect better from HN.

> The American obsession with helicoptering their kids all the way through their first job is super weird and unhealthy.

My kids, along with many others, were getting themselves to & from school without my supervision starting in third grade. Earlier, even, for my son since his sister is two years older and was with him.

This is normal. What is the fascination that so many Europeans (and others) have with making wild unsupported assertions about what Americans do and then build an entire critique from that?

I’m American and I’ve seen enough helicopter stupidity over the years to be confident saying it’s a problem. Is it the norm? Maybe not. But it’s common enough to be a thing.

Most of the helicopter stupidity i see comes from people without kids. As in, you're a terrible parent because you weren't constantly watching your kids and they did something kids do that I don't like.

the fascination comes from all these stories here:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Late 80s, Netherlands. As of the age of 6, I was free roaming on my tiny bicycle. I could go wherever I please, zero supervision, just be back in time for diner. And of course without any technology (smartphone).

Modern parents would have a heart attack.

Yes, maturity in the US seems delayed compared to many places. I feel it's because the laws and nosy neighbors have basically made it impossible to give kids responsibility. Nobody wants to hire kids because of the labor laws. Kids don't want to work because they get everything handed to them or the cost of stuff like transportation is too high. Let your young kid play alone? You might have the cops called on you.

>Not all high schoolers are mature enough to be left alone and go to school.

That's insane. I walked to school at 6. At 8, I walked to the bus stop and rode a public transit bus to school. The helicoptering has gone way to far and it is creating generations of crippled kids. I wonder if this is solely caused by the media pushing fear or if there are other factors.

I agree. We need to change the laws, case law, and societal expectations to stop threatening parents over lack of supervision.

We’re talking about a pretty small window of time. 2 hours at most. And a kid who’s going to willfully skip school is going to do so whether or not school starts at 8:30 instead of 7:30.

In most cases, this should work out better for parents. With elementary school starting latest (as was the norm in many places a decade ago), the little kids end up in pre-care AND after-care. Now, they’ll start earlier, possibly avoiding pre-care.

Two hours is plenty of time for mischief, and skipping school isn't the concern. Source: Made a lot of mischief in my youth.

Sure, but you probably would have gotten up to mischief regardless of the first bell. And in the case of the morning, would you choose mischief or an extra hour of sleep? Just a guess, but I bet most kids take the sleep.

I'm not sure we need public transportation to pick up 3 kids on top of a mountain.

This is for high school. But not all high schoolers are responsible enough, so still a point. Also, the majority of people have to be at work at 8am or earlier.

Who has to be at work nowadays, other than people who tend to work in jobs which mean shift patterns.

Sometimes I have to start work at 4am, does that mean that schools should start at 3am to make it convenient for me? What about when I finish at 11pm? What if I'm working overnight?

"Who has to be at work nowadays,"

That sounds incredibly privileged.

https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/overflow-data-finds-th...

If you want to selectively quote out of context go ahead. If you want to quote a 2017 report and claim it's relevant today go ahead.

>Who has to be at work nowadays

Nearly all workers that perform non-mental labour.

You should really consider talking to some less privileged people sometime.

Most of the world's workers aren't white collar, are they?

Even if they were, are all white collar jobs allowing full remote these days?

You helpfully cut the other than people who tend to work in jobs which mean shift patterns

Everyone I know that works in a location works shift patterns or other non 9-5 jobs. My wife might start at 7.30 am one day, or another day not finish to 9pm.

If you're working 9-5 every day it's increasingly unlikely you need to be in a specific place to do so. Those who do work in specific places tend to have to cover a far larger range than 9-5 and thus require alternate child care arrangements anyway.

let's make people start work later!

Mandatory blue laws before 9am!