FCPS: middle schools start too early
Fairfax County Public Schools is considering changing middle school start times to a more reasonable hour than the current 7:30 a.m.
Research shows that having schools start a bit later in the morning has a positive impact on students’ health and wellbeing.
FCPS kicked off a series of community engagement meetings on middle school start times at Glasgow Middle School on April 29.
FCPS awarded a contract to Prismatic Services last September to develop options for starting the middle school day at or after 8 a.m.
The study will look at whether middle school start times can be adjusted without negatively affecting the start times of elementary and high schools and without having a big impact on the FCPS budget.
Following research on teens’ need for adequate sleep, FCPS in 2014 adopted a later start time for high schools – to 8:10 a.m.
To accommodate that change, middle school start times were moved to 7:30 a.m. Before, middle schools started between 7:20 and 8:05 a.m. The start times for elementary schools range from 8:10 to 9:20 a.m.
Prismatic plans to present two to four options to the school board in January 2025, said project manager Tatia Prieto. If the school board approves a new start time for middle schools, it would take effect for the 2025-26 school year.
Dr. Jim Baugh, a pediatrician and childhood sleep expert, said a too-early start time “is just not good for children.”
Adolescents and teens need more sleep than adults, Baugh said. Forcing kids to wake up too early means they’re not getting an adequate amount of sleep, and that correlates with inattention in class and obesity.
When students wake up at 5:30, they tend to skip breakfast and thus miss out on the nutrients they need from fruit, vegetables, and fiber, he said. And that affects their ability to learn and concentrate in class. It also means they will get hungry at the end of the day and are likely to turn to unhealthy snack foods.
According to Baugh, having children eat breakfast with their parents is conducive to social competence. Students are less likely to walk to school or a bus stop when it’s still dark outside, so a later start time promotes more physical activity, more comfort with the outside world, and interaction with their peers.
Calling for parents to set earlier bedtimes doesn’t work, sleep experts say.
One of the major challenges with changing school start times is the cost of transportation. As a result, one of the likely options would be to have middle schools start after elementary schools start.
Redoing the schedules for all levels of schools might necessitate more school buses, more routes, and more drivers.
FCPS has 1,625 buses, 93 vans, and 6,417 routes, said Paul D’Andrade, executive director of transportation services at FCPS. Nearly 130,867 students are transported every day. FCPS already has a shortage of 1,027 bus drivers, and some drivers travel 50 or 60 miles just to get to Fairfax County.
Other obstacles to be considered in changing school start times center around after-school sports schedules, childcare, parents’ work schedules, and resistance to change.
Not bad .. but let’s push the dress code too!! Why are girls wearing crop tops and mini shorts. Cmon don’t need later on in the future my daughter wanting to buy crop tops because “everyone at school wear it” if we do something about it now then maybe they will dress like normal kid age and not looking like mini 21s year old
lol grow up. Police what your own child wears and let other parents worry about their kids.
Good grief! Isn’t the point of this to prepare kids for the future? Why are we coddling kids so much? When they start jobs in the future some may have to wake up at 5am to get to work. Is their mommy going to call their boss and say “you need to change the start time because little Billy wants to sleep in”? I remember school started at 7:45 when I was younger and getting home at a reasonable time to go outside and play with friends, and get homework done. This is why no one wants to work. Parents coddle their kids so much and don’t prepare them for reality. FCPS sure have changed since I was a kid- and not in a good way. I can wait to leave this county! My son is graduation this May and we are getting out of here!
Interesting. How’d you vote? Where do you want to go? Will you vote the same way?
Ashley, it’s a matter of biology. Teenagers’ bodies and brains are growing and changing on par w newborns’. You remember how much babies sleep? Also, teen sleep cycles are completely different than for other
age groups. By the time students are in the business world, they have grown and their sleep needs are 6-7 hours like most adults, and their sleep cycles have normalized to be like those of other people aged 20 to 60. P.S. you may notice that your parents/ grandparents have different sleep cycles and sleep needs too.
With that logic, I assume you homeschool?
I am with you!
Elementary school school start at 8:00.
No, it starts at 9:20
Surely the only question should be, “At what time of day do our students learn best?”
As a Mom of two high school kids & a former FCPS employee, including a short stint at the Lorton Transportation Office, I’d suggest to just pushing the schools start time by an hour everyone. Simple. No changes in the schedule. No changes in the number of busses and the number of employees, and I’d bet that the bus drivers would also appreciate more sleep & less traffic during the commute. All elementary & middle schools have on-site daycare. And local extracurricular activities providers would adjust their start times in the afternoon to retain the majority of their clientele, public schools’ kids.
This is a stunningly sensible proposal that would perhaps be the easiest to implement.
As it stands, that would have Elementary schools starting after 10am and getting out at 5. Seems pretty harsh.
Not all elementary schools and middle schools have on-site daycare! Where did you get that idea???
As someone else notes, your suggestion would push elementary school start times really far back.
If we can push middle school start times a little back without affecting high school and elementary schools, then fine. But I doubt that is truly practical considering the transportation system like it is and all of the double back routes that are needed that even now are getting kids to school late.
Elementary school kids getting off at 5 would be a disaster. That means getting home from the bus around 5:30. Kids have barely any time for homework, sports, dinner before bed. Not to mention time to play with friends.
This makes little to no sense. Think about it. ES children getting home at 5 pm when people speed to make it home and blinded by the setting sun. HS Students who play sports games are affected – when there is also a referee shortage, so they need to stagger it to make it work. MS students still home first before everyone.
What a stupid idea.
It’s not good for children to go to school too early! We grew up in Washington DC and all our schools start time was 8:45 am. Please allow children to live their normal life. They are not in military! They need sleep and get breakfast at the normal time before go to school.
Great idea. Let the elementary school students start at 10am and end at 3pm. The school year can just be extended to make up for the lost learning. Parents will just have to amend summer vacations or do away with them all together. Then the youngsters will learn what adult life is like.
Our elementary currently goes from 8:50-3:35, middle 7:30-2:15, and highschool 8:10-2:55. Not only would having elementary start as late as you suggested (10) and ending that early (3) increase the burden on working parents, it would also reduce their school day by an hour and 45 minutes.
Rather, as a parent who had 1 child in each level for 4 years, I have long thought that elementary should start the earliest and end at the same time or later than they currently do. I would prefer 8-4. A longer lunch, a longer recess, & more time for “specials” like library, computer tech, STEM, music, and art would have greatly improved my children’s school life. Plus younger kids naturally wake up earlier and are easier to put to bed at an earlier time.
But extending the school day for elementary school would increase the budget significantly – I don’t think tax payers across the county would be on board for that
How about a compromise? Move each start time by just 30 minutes:
8:00 AM – 2:45 PM for MS
8:40 AM – 3:25 PM for HS
9:15 AM – 4:05 PM for ES
For context I drive a bus for FCPS.