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.