DON'T Start School Later

I don't really feel like reviewing another article, but that was really the only idea I had so I thought I would write about this whole petition to start school later.

I don't agree with this and I don't think that it will be easy to sway me in the other direction so I'll try to give some of my logic behind this - I'm not saying it will make sense or anything though.

Reasons That I Don't Want to Start School Later

• First of all, if school starts an hour earlier than it will end an hour later.  Therefore, for high school students in CAP and Magnet, they will not get out of school until 4:00.  For me that would mean I would not get home until 4:30, for most of my peers it means 5:00 or after.  We have A LOT of homework and that hour we spend in school is lost, meaning it is no longer homework time, so we will be staying up an extra hour.  If you're following my logic, we really will not be getting any extra sleep.  Also, sports practices will not end until 6:30, meaning  that we would not get home until 7:00-7:30.

• This petition would make it so middle and elementary schools would start later as well because the buses wouldn't be able to get all three age ranges to school at 8:15.  Elementary schools would not start from 9:50-10:15, which is a HUGE inconvenience to parents.  My parents at least would not have been able to stay home that late.  Many parents need to get to work by 8:00 or 9:00.  They would be an 1-2 hours (even more in most cases) late to work, meaning they would have to stay late and not be able to be there when their kid gets home.

• The petition also says that this will allow kids to get more sleep.  But come on, lets be honest, kids will just procrastinate on their assignments that much longer.  Also, we're just going to stay up later than we normally would because we'll get to sleep later - again, we won't be getting any more sleep.  If kids want to get more sleep than it is their responsibility to do what they have to do and get themselves into bed at a decent hour.  It is no one's fault but their own when they claim that they haven't been getting enough sleep.

I have tons of more reasons for not starting the day later but those are my main ones.  Also, and most importantly, I don't want to start school later.  The afternoon is my time to do what I want to do.  A random hour in the morning is not enough time to let me have soccer practice, or hangout with friends, or go to a movie, or do some other thing that teenagers supposedly like to do.  And losing that time in the afternoon is not going to let me do those things either.

So there you have it.  Please don't make school start later.  Or at least not until I graduate - but even then don't do it either.