Towson High School sent out a letter today to let parents and students know that, “based on the needs of the school system,” Baltimore County Public Schools has decided that this coming year classes for Towson High students will start at 7:40 AM instead of at 7:50 AM as they did this year. The doors will still open at 7:00.
This is upsetting news for those advocating for later start times for high schoolers.
Andra Williams Broadwater, head of the Baltimore County chapter of the Start Schools Later movement, said she finds it “unconscionable” that BCPS is, in her view, putting the needs of the system ahead of what’s best for students.
“Early school start times, like those in Baltimore County, lead to chronic sleep deprivation for adolescents, whose physiology makes it hard for them to go to sleep and wake up early, as our school system requires. The accumulated sleep deprivation impairs their attention, memory, and judgement,” Broadwater said.
“It puts our students at higher risk of depression, substance abuse, and car crashes, among other dangers. Districts with later start times experience lower truancy and disciplinary incidents, and higher levels of student achievement and athletic performance,” she said.
Several local PTAs and PTSAs support later start dates, she said, including the Towson High PTSA.
“While the principal’s letter indicates start times will shift by ‘only’ 10 minutes, that means the first bus pickup for Towson High School students will be at 6:40 am,” Broadwater said. “From mid-September through mid-March, these students will be waiting for the bus before the sun rises.”
The full letter from Towson High can be read here.
-Kristine Henry
The Towson Flyer
Because BCPS is ALL ABOUT what works ONLY for THEM, Not our future, not our KIDS. This is the most selfish, deceitful school system I have ever had to be in. It’s sickening! They are only in it for the personal gain of BCPS, and it’s stakeholders and well paid “higher ups” who do NOTHING (certainly nothing about BULLYING, intimidation, harassment!
Sick of the whole American school system! They care nothing about the kids, only about real estate prices and property taxes. Im in NJ, where most H schools start before 8, except private. I am always laughed at when I suggest hs should start later! Get the usual: “need child care”, “need more practice time for sports”, “the after school jobs”, “the busses” (only 10% take bus in am) and my favorite, “kids need to learn to suck it up and be adults and get up before dawn like the rest of us”, in other words, lets teach them now to register early for college classes so they dont get stuck with early 8 am classes! Most colleges dont even have classes before 8, pfft. Unfortunately, I’m starting to long for more private schools. Im either going to have to move out of the house I love and move closer to an expensive private high school that starts at 8am– can’t find even a private one that starts at 8:30–or online school to avoid our semi-rural high school start time of 7:25! I had to drag my oldest night owl girl up in the am and it was torture for both of us. I wont do it again to my youngest or myself!