I am writing in response to article “California To Mandate School Start Times” in the Oct. 15 edition of the San Mateo Daily Journal. I feel it very troubling that our state legislators are slowly eroding the rights of local school districts as well as blatantly disregarding the wishes of the electorate on many issues. School starting times should be left to local control of school districts not mandated by state legislators most of whom have never taught school in their lives. They should not dictate school hours provided schools are meeting state mandated instructional hours.
I’m wondering how our spineless local state legislators voted on this bill taking away the rights of parents, teachers and school trustees to run their schools. I have been teaching high school and college for more than 40 years and always have found that my students in earlier classes are more proficient and excel on every assessment than later classes.
We are supposed to be preparing our teens for college and beyond. Many college classes begin at 7 a.m. and for many adults, their workday starts even earlier as evidenced by freeway traffic as early as 5 a.m. It is true many teens suffer from sleep deprivation. Usually this can be attributed to excessive phone use, video games and poor time management. Parents, take away the cell phones and video games at 8 p.m. on school nights and your teen will surely get more sleep and their grades will improve.
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(1) comment
Right on Jim !
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.