8:30 start coming for 2022-23 school year
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2019 that requires public high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., except for zero period classes. This law goes into effect in the 2022-2023 school year. Naturally, this means that the CVHS daily schedule will be pushed back to accommodate this new law. This could mean later release times, later lunch periods, shortening of breaks and/or classes.
A committee of students, staff, and parents has been created in order to try and listen and meet the needs of everyone impacted by this new change. The committee surveyed students, staff, and parents’ opinions about how they wanted to see next year’s schedule play out. These responses are being used to draft various new schedules.
“Our goal in these meetings has been to hear feedback from the community about how shifting our bell schedules to an 8:30 or later start time will affect them, and seek recommendations on how to make the adjustment work best,” said committee leader and Assistant Principal Kevin Baker.
“Everyone has an opinion on what a new schedule should look like, and all opinions, while valid, are not possible,” said scheduling committee member and teacher Thomas Maloney.
The committee currently has many different restraints, like the government mandated amount of time that needs to be spent in school, or working with parent and guardian work schedules so students can be dropped off and picked up at reasonable times. With this schedule impacting so many people, there are a lot of opinions and needs that need to be met to keep people as satisfied as possible.
An adjustment period is expected, as with any new schedule, but this does not mean committee members are not confident in things succeeding and students benefitting from these new changes.
“Each schedule has its pros and cons and it takes time to adjust to a new schedule, but once you do, it runs smoothly,” said science teacher Kathleen Veety-Martin.
The schedule changes are prompted by different studies showing that students may benefit from later starts to the day. By pushing the day back later, students are given a chance to sleep in later, giving them a fuller night of sleep, or get work done in the morning, giving them more time to complete their work to their highest abilities.
“We aren’t worried about the new schedules affecting teaching and learning because we can accomplish the same academic goals with a variety of scheduling options. The whole intent behind the law is for students to get more sleep, so they can be more focused during the school day,” said Baker.
Currently many options exist for what can be done with next year’s school year, too many to release at this time, because more work needs to be done to try and finalize how the schedule will look. The committee will be meeting again before any public announcements can be made about next year.
“Our recommendations will then be shared with the (staff) Leadership Council, and later with the teachers’ union. After all these groups share their feedback, we will be able to publicize expected schedules,” said Baker.
I’m glad school is starting a little later than usual. It’s very hard for me to go to bed at a time that would let me get the amount of sleep I need, and because of that I am very tired throughout the day and doze off in class. 30 minutes can mean a lot in terms of sleep and it could help me focus more in class.
I’m glad that we’ll get some extra time to sleep but I’d rather have to start earlier than later in the day. Having school start later in the day means that school will also end later than usual. This can lead to certain changes in schedules like jobs and how much time you have to do homework or study for a test. Also, people might have the thought of staying up at night a bit longer because school starts a bit later which means that this change can have zero effect on some people.
I’m glad that school will start later because it means I can sleep in more, but I wish it didn’t mean school would end later. I feel like we already don’t have much free time after school, so if it ends later, we’ll have even less time to complete our homework and participate in our extracurriculars.
There is a lot to say on this kind of topic and a lot of opinions. I love the idea of getting even more sleep, even if that’s because I stay up pretty late quite often, but all I can think of is the drawbacks that would come with later start times or later releases. Some parents would still probably have to wake their kids up and take them to school a long time before school even starts because they have to get them to school before they have to work. Parents usually have to be at work at, like, 8 so kids would still have to get up early to accommodate with that. Later releases would also most likely affect after school activities like sports, the students that have after school jobs, or the students that have far to walk home because it gets dark when they have to walk. Maybe everything will be fine when the new schedule that comes out or when we get used to it, but for now I have my doubts about it being a good thing.
Although sleep is important, i think this will affect the students more than benefit. With later start times we will need to accommodate to later end times. Not only would the later end times affect our extracurricular activities, but they would also affect our social lives outside of school. A later end time could impact the amount of time we get to spend with our families and friends. This could also affect students who have jobs or volunteer programs as they would have to be pushed later into the day. all these factors could cause drastic changes in people sleep schedules, eating habits, and relaxation time.
Starting at an earlier time is either a good thing or a bad thing to certain students. It’s a good idea that school starts later in order to have students have better sleep, but at the same time it will mean that school will end later. This really could effect the students how has after school activities or any extracurriculars that they have to attend to. This means that they will end later or they would be late to them. So, it would be less time to do homework in order to get the full 8 hours or more of sleep which would just go back to the normal cycle.
I feel great that school is starting earlier because I always want to sleep in and if I do then I’m sometimes late to school.
Just shifting the schedule ahead 20-30 minutes and not changing anything else like the workload or making the day shorter doesn’t seem like it’ll do much. Everything’s just later and I feel like it would affect a lot of afterschool activities.
I with the majority of all these comments, it’s just pushing us, students, to sleep later and wake up later. Which is okay but with people who have extracurriculars after school and homework on top of that, it cuts down on free-time unless you want to stay up late to do so.
I feel glad that school starts later. But I take 0 period so i don’t know how much it’s going to affect my sleep schedule. Overall I feel this is a step in the right direction.
I don’t think having a 20 minute later start time will affect the performance of students, though we might an extra 20 minutes of sleep, it won’t have a big impact. Also, having a later release time overlaps with students’ afterschool plans; clubs, jobs, volunteering, etc.
It’s nice that I will be able to sleep later, or get more hours of sleep, but this could be bad for other students.
I like how they are pushing back everything except 0 periods at 8:30. Gives me more time to sleep even if it’s like 10 minutes. I don’t need to rush to school anymore and I can be on time.
As much as I love the fact that school starts later on in the morning, I think this new schedule will be a huge problem later in the day. I have many things that I do after school as an extracurricular student, that barely fit into my day the way it is. Also, sleep is something that I’m always going to be thankful for more of, but usually, the amount of sleep I get is determined by what I did the night before. Meaning that a later start time that supposedly will give us more sleep, won’t work for some students.
I was reading about the new fall schedule and how it’s gonna take effect next coming school year. Hearing that we will be starting at 8:30 is great news for juniors and seniors that have cars and can transport their sleeves but for seniors and freshmen, I think it’s gonna be challenging. I don’t think many people consider that but parents’ job times won’t change for students so it’s gonna be harder for many students to come to school. But I also think there is going to be a lot more walking involved.
I don’t think pushing back the school starting time to 8:30 will have much effect on students´ sleep. By pushing it back, it would mean that we would get out later and get home at a later time. The school schedule isn’t what determines how much sleep we get, it´s the amount of homework and how late in the night we spend to finish it.
The 20-30 will make little to no difference, there truly is no point and it sucks that we’ll have to stay in school longer in order to make up for that time. It could start a cycle of bad time management and cause kids to be even more tired than they started.
I have mixed feelings about the starting time. I agree that school should start later so students can sleep longer. However, I don’t like the idea of releasing at 4pm. Many students have extracurricular activities after school and this would affect them.
I think this is a bad thing but also good thing. kids will just stay up later but also it is a good thing and maybe kids will learn prioritize sleep more.
It’s obvious who doesn’t and who does have a zero period by the way they speak about this topic lmao. Whenever zero period is pushed back by five minutes, my friends and I are able to get Starbucks to help us get through the early morning. Yeah, just FIVE minutes. Imagine thirty. I might be able to eat breakfast in the morning with an extra thirty minutes. Or, I could put more effort into my appearance so I could feel less suic*dal. Myself, as well as many other zero period students will benefit immensely from this schedule change.
Does the current bell schedule follow the requirements from the state because if so I think we should just keep the current schedule. I don’t want to get out of school at 4:00, I rather start later.
I think that the schedule should stay the way it is personally I don’t have a problem with the schedule now and I don’t think that starting at 8:30 and leaving school later is a good idea because some students have jobs and homework and it’s hard to fit that all into a couple of hours
Going to school later and releasing early is not a good idea. Although we will sleep longer, we will go home later than usual. That means we will start to do our homework late and stay up late. It will do the same things over and over and it won’t be sane at all. I know everything has two sides. Going to school early also makes us tired because we don’t get enough sleep, but we can go home early to do homework.
I don’t think making a 30 min difference to the schedule will make a difference. Personally I would rather start early and be released at around early than later such as 4.
I do not think a 20-30 minute later start will make a difference. If you really want students to get more sleep, they should assign less homework. I know some students who will stay up till 2 AM doing homework and I know for a fact, if you change the start time to 830 instead of 810, it will not make a difference.
I don’t mind the early start times. I wake up at around 6-6:30 am on most school days anyways. I think that if we end up having to leave later, then I think that they need to assign LESS homework for classes so that students can have more sleep AND some time to de-stress. I think that being able to de-stress is important for academic performance AND for health. Students should be able to also spend time with family and with friends.
I think that starting school at a later time and getting out later isn’t very smart. Yes, we might be able to sleep a little longer but the real stress of school is how long the days are. I think that in a way starting later is pointless if we are going to be in the school for the same amount of time as we are now.
Overall I feel that with school starting later we will have more time to sleep and it’ll benefit everyone overall but with a later school start time comes a later release time.
I feel like starting school later and ending school later wouldn’t make a big difference to the students because it’s just the same thing. I don’t really get why they are doing that.
I personally don’t think that adding 20 minutes will change anything since school will just end later, meaning you have 20 minutes less time in the afternoon to do homework, therefore you basically go to sleep 20 minutes later. It just doesn’t really solve anything. If people need more sleep and do have free time to do so, then they should just go to sleep earlier.
I think starting at 8:30 gives students a bit more time to sleep. Especially when lots of students tend to sleep late.
I think the point is mandated amount of time that needs to be spent in school should be shorter
Im happy I will be able to get more sleep but I am worried that I will have to work later then I already do.
I feel that would very good for us because it would let us have more time in the mornings to do things like getting ready, or sleeping in an extra 20 minutes.
I love the idea of the school day beginning at 8:30, as this gives students more time to sleep in after late nights.
As much as I would love to sleep in later, I don’t like the fact that we have to end school later. I think it would be beneficial just to end school earlier because the hours itself is already way too long.
It will be nice to sleep in but i don’t like how school will end later.
I’m glad to have the extra sleep in the mornings but I’m concerned with how that will affect some people’s after school schedules like work and/or other extracurricular activities on top of school work and other responsibilities. Some students might be losing valuable time after school that they depended on.
I already feel like a thirty-minute lunch is kinda short, so if they take time away from lunch, I don’t think students will be happy with that. Granted, I don’t think they’d be happy with school ending at an even later end time. It’s just a matter of which one will students and staff be less angry about.
It’s good that we get more sleep in the morning, which means that we get out of school later and have less time to do our other stuff. It would be better if we keep the time as we do now. It only 20min more so it won’t change much.
It’s good that this is happening but it isn’t really a difference unless we get out dramatically earlier, like around 1;50-2:15. I think we should instead leave school earlier, so we can partake in after school activities and have enough time to do our homework and relax.
I have mixed feelings about the new start times. While it’s cool that school starts at 8:30, the fact that it ends at 4:00 makes me wish we would keep our current schedule rather than change it.
I feel like a 20 minute difference wouldn’t really help anything. Since we would be going to school later, we would be ending later, and would have less time to do homework, especially after extra circulars. That would mean we go to sleep later, going back to a later 20 minute start, which doesn’t help.
It might be nice to be able to sleep for a little longer, but I hope they don’t shorten our breaks or make us leave at 4pm cause that would kind of suck
It’s good that this is happening, but I feel like there should be more after this.
I’m glad that school is starting later, it will give students more time to sleep. With so many late nights doing homework, having the extra 30 minutes will be amazing. The only thing I am worried about is, if we are stating later, we are ending later too.
Im not really sure if this later start will help at all with sleep as its only a 20 minute difference.
Although I will have already graduated, I still think that the 8:30 start time will likely have more negative consequences than benefits. Students are likely to hurt their own sleep more than the school schedule so there would be no significant difference in the amount of sleep. Therefore, I don’t expect much of an improvement, but only messed up schedules in the afternoon.
If school starts later and ends later, students will probably get the same amount of sleep.
I’m really happy that we will get some more extra time in the morning for school but I don’t think it will help much in the sleeping part. Hopefully, we won’t leave too late after school since 3:30 is already late enough.
I am glad that I will be able to get more sleep because I believe that it helps a lot for school.
I’m glad school is starting later.
It’s great that school starts later but that means school ends later so all the afterschool activities like sports will be pushed back so we might just get the same amount of sleep.
I like that they are making the scheduling public very early instead of later
I like the later start time but I hope they won’t take away the snack break, because I use that time to eat breakfast. Also I really like getting out of school early, but I guess we won’t have shorter days tues/wed next year. Anyway, I can’t really tell until it happens, but I’m hopeful this change will help my sleep schedule.
I am happy that school is starting later but I am still going to have to wake up early and rush to school because traffic will still be bad.
I’ll still probably be falling asleep in 1st period, but it’s nice that California is trying to do something against early start times.
I’m so glad that they’re moving the start time back. Sleep is hugely important, so it’s nice to see them prioritizing it. It’s also good to know that the committee is taking everyone’s opinion into account. Looking forward to getting more sleep next year!