Write An Essay About Pushing Back School Start Times?

One of Megan McLaughlin 's main issue of concern is school start times. However, during this past year, she was successful in pushing back High School start times around an hour later. Ms. McLaughlin had been an advocate of later school start times for many years, seeing that she has 3 sons, who all attended Woodson. Later sleep times are important for many reasons. First, it has been proven that adolescent brains contain a hormone that makes it challenging for teens to fall asleep before 11 at night and be alert before 8 in the morning (Spinks). This observation shows that even though students may be sleeping 7 or 8 hours, by having school start at 7:20, student’s brains aren’t functioning as efficiently as they will be an hour later. Another …show more content…
This sum includes purchasing 27 new buses and hiring the new bus drivers. While this may seem as a small sum for such a large county, Fairfax County Public Schools are currently facing a deficit of over $14 million, and are expected to see a deficit of over $100 million in the 2016-2017 fiscal year (“FY”). This means that pushing back school start times accounts for nearly 5% of the downfall, leading to teacher being laid off and extracurricular activities being cut. Another reason pushing back school start times affects the community in a negative way is the increase in traffic. While it may have taken a bus 10 minutes to travel from Mantua to Woodson, during the crazed rush hour of 7:30, it could now take up to 30 minutes.This increase in travel time means students may be late to classes, or have to leave their house so early, the later school start time is of no affect. Also, new teen drivers who were used to the empty streets at 6:30 will now be right in the heart of rush hour (Roussey). This creates a dangerous situation for not only the students, but all other drivers as