Stupid Reasons Districts Give to Avoid Healthier School Start Times

If we’ve worked together, you know that I am upfront with clients. When we are working to make education better for kids, I don’t think we have time to waste on feel-good, bland statements that don’t drive action. As 1 of my heroes put it,

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill

I have found it’s particularly important to be upfront with clients as they wrestle with moving toward healthier school start times (SSTs). More so than many others in which we support positive change, school districts seem to throw up many reasons to avoid healthier SSTs and most of them are stupid. In this article, I’d like to prepare you for the many stupid reasons you may encounter on the road to healthier SSTs.

But 1^st, let’s review: What are healthier SSTs? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and a whole host of other science-centered associations agree that middle and high schools should start at 8:30a or later. Elementary students are not negatively impacted by starting school as early as 7:45a. Moreover, this is starting to be old science – the AAP has been promoting 08:30a+ since 2014.

Now for the stupidity. When it comes to healthier SSTs, someone in the district almost always says,

“We can’t change X and, if we can’t change X, it’s not possible to change SSTs.”

Every school district seems to have some immutable values for X. In the transportation arena, it’s things like:

• We have always transported ES and MS separately, so we cannot look at options that might combine them.
• Buses at the HS always take 20 minutes to clear campus, so no way can we put HS in the 1^st tier. They would never make it to a 2^nd school on time in the afternoon.
• Flipping school schedules will of course cost money (but no, we don’t have any data to support that assertion).

Outside the transportation arena, programs and parents often offer up values for X like:

• 14% of our MS students attend an afterschool program that we think is awesome. If MS ends later in the day, some of those kids won’t come to afterschool.
• We think some of our HS kids might be working at the local Peach Pit soda fountain. If HS goes later, they won’t be able to help support their families with those tips.
• Every Tuesday, I need my MS student to get home before their ES sibling to babysit so that I can get in my Reformer Pilates class.

Except for the Peach Pit and Pilates specifics, those are all real examples that came up in our recent work in Fairfax County Public Schools. No, they had no data on why MS kids were attending afterschool (perhaps to have a safe place between the early end of school and when their parents were home from work?). They had limited data about how many HS kids might be working primarily to help support their families. Overall, 31% of the Fairfax HS students noted they worked an outside job and the strong majority of those noted they worked less than 2 hours per school day. Importantly, the 31% figure did not change from 2014 to 2015 when Fairfax switched from 7:20a HS ST to a mostly 8:10a ST. As for relying upon older siblings to babysit younger ones, survey data indicated that only 17% of parents were doing so 1 or more school days per week, but we had no data about whether this support was crucial or just a convenience. Even if it was crucial for some families, should that be a deciding factor in implementing something better for all secondary students? Were these stupid reasons persuasive in Fairfax? Unfortunately, they were for some school board members.

Another example that comes up literally every time is, “If HS starts later, the football practice schedule might have to change and we’ve been starting football practice at 2:45p for as long as anybody can remember.” And, truthfully, as much as school districts should make education their #1 priority, football is often a strong #2 (districts in Texas would likely accuse me of downplaying football by calling it #2). 

Of course, this X ignores the multitude of school districts that have figured out how to start HS later and still have football. All of California switched to HS STs or 8:30a or later in 2022-23. In the Los Angeles area, Claremont High School now holds varsity football practice from 6:15a to 8:15a; JV practice is 5:00p to 7:00p. It’s doable.

Finally, there are the reasons that teachers offer up. Their immutable X’s have included:

• Teachers won’t work as club sponsors if the secondary school day ends later.
• I’m a teacher at the HS. If you change the SST, it means I can’t keep my current schedule at my 2^nd job.
• I’m an ES PE teacher and HS coach. If you change up the SSTs, I’ll have an inconvenient break between my ES teaching and when HS coaching starts.
• I started teaching in this district years ago and the SSTs have never changed. The kids have turned out fine and I don’t want to be inconvenienced.
• I teach at the HS. If you make the ST later, I will have a longer commute.

All of these are also real examples from Fairfax, just a portion of the hundreds we received from teachers. While some may have just been observing potential hurdles in getting to healthier SSTs, many of the teachers’ comments could be summarized as “I care more about me than I do about students.” Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes.

The common thread in many of the stupid reasons, is an unwillingness or inability to see that:

There are no constants in the SST equation, only variables.

When I’m working with school boards and they ask me what is possible, I say, “Anything is possible, it just depends on how much you want to pay for it.” Could you start all schools in your district at 8:30a? Sure, but it will likely cost you a lot of additional buses and drivers. Could you transport ES and MS students together where is makes sense routing-wise? That’s done in rural districts all the time with no reported casualties yet. Could you work with the HS principal to develop a bus site plan and procedure so that campus clears in 6 minutes? Yes, that was 1 of the things we did in Anne Arundel. Can we change the time for football practice and still win games? The current Anne Arundel superintendent has noted that he’s won more state championships since they switched to later HS times, so I think so.

Going into a SST change, it’s important to take a deep breath and know that there are no constants in the equation, only variables. Stupid reasons must be called out as such. And, as the emails flood in with hundreds of stupid reasons why SSTs cannot change, it may also help to remember the words of a great school board member, “Sometimes what is best for some of us isn’t what’s best for all of us.”[1] On the road to healthier SSTs, we have a better chance of getting there if we remember they are what is best for all students.

[1] Ryan McElveen, https://youtu.be/d63cQ2_vt_E?si=prMtYRsy2Xb50yq9, at 1:19.