Fresno-area schools will change start times next year. What parents need to know

On the days her sixth-grade daughter hasn’t slept well, Kate Woertman has to do a lot more “dragging” and “prodding” to get her off to school.

Woertman said she decided “some time ago that I will no longer push and rush her because it ruins both of our days. I’m no doctor or scientist, but I really believe waking up with natural light and when your body is rested sets you up for a healthier day.”

So Woertman is glad to know that next year, when her daughter attends a Fresno Unified middle school, it will be mandated by state law that classes can’t start before 8 a.m.

Senate Bill 328, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, requires California middle schools beginning in July 2022 to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

The law has sparked a passionate debate among parents who worry about later start times affecting after-school activities, home life, and their own work schedules. Others are looking forward to seeing their kids struggle less in the morning.

Data from the 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey shows about 10% of the nation’s high schools begin before 7:30 a.m. Only 17% start at 8:30 a.m. or later, and city and suburban areas with more than 1,000 students per campus are more likely to start classes before 7:30 a.m.

All Fresno Unified middle schools already start after 8 a.m., but many high schools do not. Clovis middle and high schools begin before 8. The bell rings at 7:25 a.m. for Central Unified’s three high school campuses.

The science behind starting school later

Researchers have known for years that teenagers’ bodies work differently than those of young children and adults.

Around puberty, the body’s circadian rhythm — the internal clock that runs a person’s sleep-wake cycle — “parallels a shift ... from more morning type to more evening type,” according to pediatric studies, “which consequently results in difficulty falling asleep at an earlier bedtime.”

That means the average teen today has trouble falling asleep before 11 p.m. and has difficulty waking before 8 a.m.

Newer research has shown links between sleep deprivation and obesity, depression, and risky behaviors such as drug and alcohol use. Crimes involving juveniles also rise in the early after-school hours, and criminologists say if teens had less unstructured social time with peers after school, it would lead to less delinquency and substance abuse.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 13 to 18-year-olds sleep between 8 and 10 hours, yet less than a third of high schoolers are getting that on school nights. In 2014, the AAP recommended both middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

Research also indicates that school hasn’t always started so early. As it became more common for both parents to work, earlier start times became the norm to fit both parents’ schedules.

Yet, even with all the science, getting schools to change their start times has been slow-going, as it would shift staff and after-school schedules and negatively affect many parents who work.

Crystal Cruz, who describes herself as a single mother of two children in Central Unified, said she doesn’t see how the new law would benefit her children’s sleep at all. Next year she will have a seventh-grader and a high school freshman.

“That would just push everything out later, so sports would finish later, homework would finish later, dinner would be later. And for those of us parents who work and have to drop off our kids by 7-7:15, it really would not benefit them in their sleep habits,” she said.

Sports are high on the list of worries about the new law.

Schools have to consider how having potentially different ending times could impact playing against players from different schools or leagues, according to Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants. Students may miss some school time if they have to leave class to play a game.

She said high schools in the area should “consider our shared impact if we were to jump significantly off a start time from one another.”

Some parents who shared their thoughts with The Bee expressed frustration that letting teens start school later is not helping set them up for the real world.

“When they one day get a job, there might be times they have to be up early and go to work, so it’s better to prepare them now for it,” Cruz said. “I’m really not for it.”

Kirsten Morris, another Central Unified parent, said she and her three teens get up at 5:30 and 6 a.m. in shifts. She has to be at work by 7:30 a.m.

“I love the 7:25 (a.m. time); I can get to work on time!!” she wrote in a message. “We still have a bedtime because I don’t want to deal with grumpy teenagers.”

Earlier school start times affect on California teachers, staff

Shifting start times will affect hours of employment and would affect collective bargaining agreements, the bill’s author, Sen. Anthony Portantino, acknowledged. So schools that still have agreements that were in place on Jan. 1, 2020, won’t have to change times until that agreement has expired.

One of the bill’s biggest opponents was the California Teachers Association, which said SB 328 was well-intentioned but could have unintended consequences on local communities and working families.

“There are simply far too many local factors to consider when deciding our school start times,” the CTA said in a callout to Newsom before the bill passed. “Young people growing up in San Francisco have different challenges than children in Tehachapi.”

Clovis Unified is in the middle of conducting meetings at every school site with employees and parents to understand how it could work. By January or February of next year, the school board will vote on the changes with enough time to ready parents, students, and employees for the next school year, Avants said.

Fresno and Central Unified will go through similar processes.

“Probably the bulk of the conversation at our parent meetings is around elementary parents,” Avants said. Parents are worried about kids walking home in the dark when the time changes and about extracurricular activities running too late.

“Then there’s the whole issue of working parents,” she said. “There was a lot of encouragement to go earlier rather than later for elementary, which is certainly one of the things we’re considering.”

What may be the biggest hurdle schools face in implementing the law is transportation. Rural school districts that can prove changing start times would cause economic hardship can apply for an exemption.

Shelley Coito is a bus driver for Central Unified who said she’s frustrated about what’s to come. She also believes the law sets up kids for failure.

“The bus drivers are not happy about this change,” she said.

“In real life as adults, some travel hours to work. It’s life,” she told The Bee. The later schedule will put drivers “in a bind, rushing around,” until dark, possibly until 9 p.m., she worried.

Kerman schools already starting later

Kerman Unified is one of several districts in the Valley that have already made the switch to later start times. Although it was a bonus to be in line with the law so early, the change was born in many districts due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The problem we had last year with COVID is, obviously, I couldn’t transport all those kids at one time because of social distancing,” said Kerman Unified Superintendent Robert Frausto.

The solution was to start elementary schools at 7:40 a.m. and secondary schools at 8:40 a.m. Bus drivers pick up younger kids first, then go back around for the older students, he said.

Although he didn’t have to do it that way again this year, he said, “It didn’t make any sense to go back to the old start times for one year and then switch again next year. I thought, ‘I’m just gonna leave it alone and bite the bullet.’”

Frausto said it has been cost-efficient.

“We actually cut at least three routes by staggering our start times,” he said, which requires fewer buses and fewer bus drivers.

Frausto said he is an advocate for later start times, and he’s seen firsthand how it helps students get more sleep and do better in school.

When he was a principal in the Merced City School District and start times were pushed, he saw fewer students showing up late. And he’s also seeing that at his district now.

“It helps them to sleep later in the day right before they come to school,” he said. “We have a lot (fewer) tardies.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.