Moving back the start of school seems like the dream of every high school student. Their biggest complaint these days seems to be the lack of sleep.
However, such an idea might not be the solution it promises to be. Pushing back the starting time of the school day would have a variety of ramifications for Chamblee students. Perhaps the biggest impact would be on athletes.
“I like the time school starts, because if it got pushed back later, that would cause practices to start later,” said senior Alex Turney. “I would get home later and would have to stay up later. That would kind of mess up when I want to sleep.”
This seems rather counterproductive, given the motivation to push back the starting time of school is to alleviate the lack of sleep.
However, other students could potentially gain from such a move, including dual enrollment students.
“If you were to push the start time of school back, dual enrollment students would have the opportunity to take more classes,” said senior Brynn Lautenbacher. “[This] would be good for some people who enjoy going above and beyond.”
Students who were members of academic extracurricular activities also saw potential benefits from the possibility of starting school later.
“I’m more likely to pay attention/contribute in afternoon meetings,” said junior Brian Kang.
However, the idea of pushing back the morning bell will not come into fruition in the near future. DeKalb County hasn’t had a serious discussion regarding this topic within the past two years. The biggest hindrance for such an idea is the logistics, especially buses.
“In a large school system like ours, no matter what anybody’s opinion is about the issue of school start time, you have over 120 schools that are interlocked in their start times and end times, due to the fact that a significant percentage of the students take the bus,” said Dr. Norman C. Sauce III, principal of Chamblee Charter High School.
In order for such an enormous change to occur, there has to be county-wide support. According to Dr. Sauce, even the support of two or three schools for starting school later wouldn’t be enough.
“There is no quick or easy fix to this issue, because you are talking about the third largest school system in the state of Georgia with massive transportation needs across vast geographic space,” said Dr. Sauce. “”If we are talking practically, these sort of changes are rare, because there are so many interlocking parts.”
However, Dr. Sauce did express optimism for slight adjustments in the time school started.
“Is there room for a school board to consider slight changes?” said Dr. Sauce. “Sure.”
