Making daylight savings time permanent is not a great idea.
It was tried in 1974 and it didn't work out well come winter.
Children ended up dying trying to get to school in the dark.
People have been mentioning their kids are heading to school at 0600 already and that it's dark even in standard time.
But why are children up so damned early?
In a word: busses.
The schools have staggered start times because there aren't enough busses to transport all of the students at the same time.
Thanks to decisions stemming from the Civil Rights Act, many students are not attending the school that's nearest their home. Bussing is mandatory.
So you end up with three start times for the students and one group has to be first to go and you have to make sure the last group dismissed is home by supper.
That means you can only start classes earlier to create the stagger.
Which means one, bleary-eyed, group is going to school in the dark regardless of it's standard or daylight savings time.
The solution isn't moving the clock around. It's to stop moving the kids around so much.
Return to the model where it's "The School" and not "the elementary school, the middle school and the high school."
If they're all going the same place, you can shove them onto one bus at the same time.
Returning to a model where you go to the school that's closest to your house also means fewer busses are needed.
Yes, I am aware of why we moved away from this model, but I think much of this is now obsolete.
I can recall lots of newspaper ads for flashlights in 1974-5. I also had some real life,experience with bussing. Because he chose an "option school" instead of the school down the street my son had to get a bus at 6:45, then change to a second bus. He started taking the train.
ReplyDeleteI'm old enough where I finished public school before bussing started so all the schools I went to were the closest ones to home. From about 5th grade it was up to me to get to school at 8 AM and back home again, usually on a bicycle or sometimes walking (Uphill both ways in the Florida snow). High school seniors got to drive and I had a used '69 Camaro for the last half of the school year.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue is that developers used to build a subdivision with a school in it so it was local. Now they can't because "the State" has to build the school but builds it nowhere close to where the kids are.
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