this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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One reason for the early starts for high schools is that by staggering the start times for high school, middle school, and elementary school, school districts can use fewer buses and fewer drivers. If all the schools started at the same (more reasonable) time, you'd need three times as many buses and drivers and each driver would only get one or two hours a day (and thus would find something else to do, making the existing shortage of drivers even worse). The district I drive for has a transportation budget of about $3 million a year - we would not be able to afford $9 million a year and still afford our administrators' enormous salaries.
If you just started all schools later by an hour, the elementary school kids would start at 9:30 AM which would not work out very well, either.
If I remember correctly most of the suggestions to account for that actually has elementary and middle schoolers start before high schoolers since high schoolers are the ones that need the most sleep while also struggling the most to go to sleep early
East Asian countries solve this by having the kids take public transit; just run a few extra buses and trains on the routes kids take, then you don't need dedicated vehicles that sit idle all day.
With trains all you have to do is add an extra passenger car or two for the peak times and keep the number of trains running the same. You could also increase frequency during peak times if you have the track, train and driver availability to do that
I dunno, that sounds like socialism.
Good thing we were saved from the horrors of broadly accessible and efficient mass transit decades ago.
Could you imagine how dangerous mass transit would be if it was full of middle schoolers, calling out your biggest insecurities, while you’re just trying to get to work? John Mulaney educated us on the danger of them years ago.
Not sure which ones you're talking about, but in Hong Kong, schoolchildren just walk to school. There's usually a school attached to each housing estate.
Japan, Korea, mainland China
I think los angeles does this too, now.
You get a free pass as a student, but public transport in most of LA still requires a (relatively) long walk. Depending on where you live, might be a deal breaker.
It is much cleaner/safer than most people think though.
Really? Not my experience.
What's your definition of long walk? If public transport is your only option, you have to take into consideration the fact you'll occasionally be carrying heavy/bulky stuff.
I usually take 20-80 lbs
They don't need to push everyone later, they just need to start the younger kids early, and the older kids later, which is the opposite of what most districts do now. Pre-teens have no problem getting up at 6AM.
Parents fight that because then they can't have the older kids take care of the younger kids when they get home from school.
and those parents should be fought by cps
It's not the parent's fault the media has made them terrified of everything that they can't let their kids just go around the neighborhood while they're at work.
yes, but if they're afraid of that they shouldn't be having their other kids watch over their younger ones
What's the alternative?
hiring a babysitter
All the highschoolers are at school, the people left over are expensive.
maybe they should have thought about it before getting a small human
So your take is that only wealthy people should reproduce?
if having enough money to stop working to take care of your kid for a few years is considered wealthy, then yes.
Between high rent and low wages, 99% of americans do not and could never have the funds to go 4 years without income. Are you really that disconnected?
owning a house eliminates the rent argument and low wages only effects future wealth not current wealth. Wealth has nothing to do with current income.
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
My school district solves this by not having busses at all
Yours might not, but do you really think that's the case everywhere?
Huh, that's curious. I'm actually a school bus driver and I've been driving high school kids for four years now. Your use of "transit passes" makes me think you're not a United Statesian.
Not sure what the comment you responded to was, but I used public transit to get to my junior high. The school provided me with a transit pass for free, which was really nice. I also live in the US. I actually only took the school bus to school for first grade.
First grade - school bus 2-6 - walking and they also did not have school buses for anyone but kindergarten 7-9 - transit, they also had no school buses 10-12 - I was either driven or drove. They did have school buses, but I wasn’t allowed to use them because I lived out of the district
Now, to be fair, I had a pretty unique situation with almost all of my schooling.
The elementary school, all of the kids that went were super close and lived in a super dense area, so walking was feasible and buses were not really needed
Junior high was a “choice” school. Meaning it was part of the public system, but it had a special theme to it and students had to request to go and they only let in a few students each year. If you did they in, you went to the normal school instead. The school had a total of 90 students and so buses were not feasible, especially since all the kids came from all over the district. They provided bus passes instead.
High school, I lived outside the district and had requested to go the school anyways, and part of the agreement to allow me to go was that I had to get my own way there. My older sibling could drive my first year and then I drove myself the next two years.
They said high school kids don't take school buses ... like, no high school kids do, which is manifestly untrue. I actually grew up in a town with no school buses at all, but that's because we had a big state university there and the school district contracted with the university bus service to provide adequate route coverage to get kids to school.