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What's the good of housing one of the world's powerhouse philanthropic organizations, after all, if the city doesn't get a beautiful grant for its own operations now and then? The Gates Foundation announced this week that Seattle schools are among their latest crop of beneficiaries; the district will receive $7.2 million over the next three years, which it plans to use to implement its infamous Five Year Plan. Though Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson received criticism for her school closure decision-making process in recent months, the Gates Foundation cites their faith in her leadership as one of the reasons they're excited about giving Seattle schools the grant.
In other Seattle schools news, the district is considering (for real, this time) a start time change [pdf]; elementary schools would start later, at 9:15 a.m., while middle schools and high schools would start at 8 a.m. The change would streamline the school bus system and make it easier to operate and to use. Personally, Seattlest would make elementary schools start early and let the older kids sleep in a little bit; little kids always have so much energy in the mornings, and it makes sense to harness that for something productive like learning how to read rather than wasting it on cartoons and cereal. God knows they'll have plenty of time for cartoons and cereal in their unemployed thirties.
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There have been countless studies and countless buckets of common sense that say older grades should start later, younger grades earlier.
Look, older kids can find their own damn way to school-- most already do. Little kids can't. They need their usually working parents to take them . So those little kids starting at after 9 am is a burden. They start early, they get let out early and so you have daycare to factor in, but what working parent gets off before 6 pm now-a-days anyway?
Starting later, those older kids actually have brain matter to use throughout the day. It's been cited in many-a Discovery and Learning Channel programs that teenagers biological clocks are 8 kinds of fucked up and they tend to be up later and sleep later-- naturally.
I personally think they temporarily turn into some sort of hideous zombie/were/vampire hybrid. But I'm still crunching the data.
I can only assume that some of the resistance in starting the high school kids later is extracurricular activities. Hard on the sports teams/jazz bands/ theater groups if the day gets extended, because they may have to load on a bus and get going somewhere.
Ha, I just realized that all becomes a moot point if they cut extracurricular to save money.
Exactly! Additionally, put the extracurricular in the morning. At my H.S., jazz was in the morning. Mine was actually in the evening, with enough time to go to your PT job and come back (about 7 or 8).