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Education Dive
California first state to mandate later school start times
Shawna De La Rosa
Oct. 15, 2019
Dive Brief:
California is the first state to mandate later start times for middle
and high school students after Gov. Gavin Newsom, siding with
pediatricians and the Parent Teacher Association, signed Senate Bill
328, according to the Los Angeles Times. Teacher unions and groups
representing school boards and superintendents opposed the bill.
The legislation was based on medical research that shows early school
start times contribute to the sleep deprivation of teens, whose
biological clocks keep them up later at night. The new law requires
that middle school start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high school start
no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
The law excludes rural districts due to transportation logistics and
optional “zero periods” that begin before the school day starts. The
later start times go into effect at the beginning of the 2022-23 school
year.
Dive Insight:
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention have been outspoken proponents of later school start
times for high school students. The organizations cite research
demonstrating lack of sleep leads to lower grades, higher dropout rates
and depression. An EducationNext study shows teen math scores go up by
8% — or the equivalent of three months of learning — when they start
school one hour later. Similarly, reading scores go up by 6% of a
standard deviation.
A study of Seattle Public School students showed when start times were
pushed to 8:45 a.m., teens used that extra hour to get more sleep. The
average amount of sleep among teens in the study grew from six hours
and 50 minutes to seven hours and 24 minutes.
California is the first state to mandate the change, but some
individual districts have already done the same. In Ohio, Cincinnati
Public Schools, for example, decided to push high school start times
from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. over the next three years. One benefit of
the later start time sited by officials is that it will be light in the
morning when students walk to school, noting 13 students were struck by
vehicles during the last school year and two died.
Cincinnati officials said changing the start times would cost $50
million, but a new school transportation director resolved the problem.
The Grand Prairie Independent School District in Texas, Vernon Township
School District in New Jersey and Orange County Public Schools in
Florida are all considering similar actions.
Despite the research backing the change, adjusting starts times has
proven difficult. Last year, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a
similar proposal, saying those decisions should be made at the local
level.
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