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Staff members of Carolina Parent magazine provide insight, tips and suggestions on making the most of family life.

Nix earlier start times for Wake schools

You know the scramble in the morning to get the kids off to school on time? It could be about to get worse for kids—and their already-frazzled parents—in Wake County.

The Wake County School Board on Tuesday gave a first nod to a proposal to change school hours so as to give teachers more planning time to improve student achievement, according to news reports. The proposal under consideration is to either have schools start early or release late so as to add 10 minutes to each day. By adding on to the daily school day, students could then have two more half days and be released an hour early one day a week.

Some teachers might be happy with the plan, but as a parent who actually is involved in rousting kids out of beds in the morning, I can tell you 10 minutes makes a big difference. Kids already aren’t getting enough sleep, as studies show. Lack sleep has been shown to lead to obesity. And high school teens fare better if they sleep later in the morning because of their biological makeup, so waking them up early won’t score any academic points. According to the National Sleep Foundation, a study of the Minneapolis Public School District, which moved to a later start time for students at seven high schools, found their performance to be encouraging. The teens improved attendance, were more alert during the day and reported less depression.

In Wake County, having kids arrive at school earlier will lead to more angst for kids and parents at a time when we’re all already stressed out by the economy. Speaking of the recession, the plan puts more financial pain on working parents. With more half days, we’ll have to figure out how to pay for daycare for that extra time off for kids.

I’m happy that schools are working on academic improvement through teacher planning, but I think we should trod carefully before we wake the sleeping babes too early as sleepy heads don’t learn as well.

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Oh cry me a river...the teachers are for this because they have been forced to come up with innovative ways to squeak each and every minute of instructional time out of the day as they can. They already have mountains of other "chores" heaped upon them (staff meetings, learning groups, lunch duty -- watching kids, not being able to have that time to plan), that they need this time. If it's a problem, make sure your kids are in bed a little earlier.

My child is in a wake county school and they already have 1 early release day and one teacher workday a month, even if there is a holiday/vacation in that month as well. Its ridiculous. When I was in school (and I'm not old) we had maybe 2 workdays a year and the only holidays we had were christmas, thanksgiving and easter. These kids are out of school all the time. They need to be adding to the day, not taking away from it!

If your child is too sleepy in the mornings- they should be going to bed early.

And if Wake County schools get 1 workday a month, where do I go to get a job there? We get 4 that are in the school year, and about 5 more that are before school starts/after summer starts. And we usually lose at least one of those 4 that are in the school year due to an inclement weather day.

How does this help the teacher? My wife, a WCPSS teacher, already works afternoons, evenings, weekends, and holidays. It just seems to me that this shifts the time around, that's all. Or, could it be an opportunity for the school system to schedule more "development" time, aka useless training. That's where most of the teacher workdays go now anyway. The teachers have always graded and planned on their own time. This idea changes nothing, but the time.

Move out of Wake County ,, we did,,, MUCH happier and both of my kids are in schools in our community,,,,not bused half way across the county.... families know each other,,,,and we are 4 minutes from the schools,,,,and i still can drive into Raleigh to work,,,,, Wake county parents, you cannot fight the school board, we could not take it any more , so we moved, best thing our family ever did. Good luck to the families who want to live withvthe 5 elem schools your kids will attend, the 2 middle schools and the 3 high schools and ooops sorry you have to attend a new school your senior year,,,,, stop the madness and take control , MOVE.

We moved from Wake to Johnston Co. for the stability of the schools for our special needs child for the 1999-2000 school year. This child is now a junior in high school, accomplishing more than we ever thought possible. Frequently what begins in the Wake system filters down to our system. Starting school any earlier just shouldn't be on the table for students. At our house we wish early release days were done as 2hr delay days...teachers starting @ regular time. Here's why. We must get up at 5:15 AM to be at the bus stop for a 6:05AM pick-up. (HS starts @ 7:15) Our family activities weekday (or lack thereof) revolve around having them in bed between 8 & 8:15 to settle in, wind down. Much later and they fall alsleep in school-which is not an option. We DVR TV for weekends, vacations. There are NO more corners to cut timewise...showers after dinner (girls w/ long hair to dry) all clothing chosen, laid out the night before and breakfast agreed upon as well. Please rethink this action.

Mingsmom-

Changing Early Release days to 2 Hr. Delay days is not feasible. On those Early Release days, we are usually at school for 4 hours after the students go home. So it would have to be a longer delay than 2 hours, and that means they would count that as a day of them not being in school at all.

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