Is it a Good Idea for Shifting the School Starting Time?

Schools should not shift their starting time so that they begin later in the morning and end later in the afternoon. After school activities would start & end even later in the evening. Traffic will be a issue for parents, teachers, buses, and students in the morning. And Parents & students work schedule would be difficult to manage.

If school starts later in the morning, then school will surely end later in the afternoon. That also means that after school activities will also be pushed back. Let’s say school ends at 4:30 instead of 2:15. Plenty of afterschool activities are 2 hours long. I arrive at home after track practice normally at 4:30. If the end school is pushed back, I could arrive at home at crazy times like 6:30 or even later. My family has dinner at 6:30 and I normally work on homework three hours a day, and I take about a hour to eat and spend time with my family. And after spending time with my family and finishing up my homework, I also need to time to freshen up my mind for the next day by playing few games, or socializing for another hour. This would put my bed time to 11 or 12 o'clock at night. That means I would still barely get enough sleep to be counted as “healthy”. After School activities can be dramatically and seriously affected by these time push backs of school. Also do not forget about students that work, students will not even have enough time to manage all of their homework, eating, and socializing time schedules.

Traffic will be a major issue for teachers, parents and students in the morning, and coming back from school, or afterschool activities. Sergeant Patrick Smyth said “It is going to make congestion everywhere on the roads, cause heavy rush hour traffic”. Teachers normally arrive to school half and hour earlier than students. But once or twice every two weeks they normally are stuck in traffic or late for work. That is completely normal to everyone and is expected. But the problem now is if the school times are being pushed back, then now it will create a serious problem. Teachers would be late a whole hour or two. Not only teachers, but students, and other parents for their jobs. Do not forget about school buses. Majority teachers normally don’t live in the same city as their school. Brien McMahon teachers like Mrs.Bjelko in the biology department take a half and hour to get to the High School every morning. It could take Mrs.Bjelko a hour with traffic congestion on the roads. By pushing back school times, expect almost half the school to be tardy, or absent for a entire class.

Parents will have a difficult time trying to manage their work schedules due to idea of pushing back school start times. Some businesses are not always flexible on letting workers switch up their time schedule. Healthday.com says that Parents are worried about after school activity times, and it would be difficult for them to manage their own schedules(Amy Norton Paragraph 24). 636 parents surveyed that after school activities would be way to late(Nancy Shute). Melissa Willets from parents.com talks about how school start times pushed back is a “win win situation for everybody”. In the article “Would you support a later school start time for your teen?”. It tries to change your minds on thinking how school start times are actually a good thing for everyone. Though the article does not consider any topic for school end times that would be pushed back as well. Does not mention anything about traffic, time schedules, and sure does not mention how students would be also busy late at night and still wouldn’t get enough sleep.

By considering traffic congestion, parents work hours unpredictable, and the time that a student gets to spend time at home, then you now understand why shifting the times that schools start and end would be a dilemma.

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