Later start times are vital for older students

I have total sympathy for parents who find their schedules turned topsy-turvy by the recently announced changes in school start times (“Parents blast plan to alter start times at city schools,’’ Page A1, Dec. 9). But the Boston School Committee has it absolutely right. The last decade has produced study after study showing that when children reach puberty, their circadian clocks undergo a “phase delay.’’ So when the alarm clock goes off at 7:00 a.m. for Boston high school students, their brain says it’s more like 5:00 or 6:00. This phase delay disappears by their early 20s.

The important fact is that there’s nothing that society can do about this except try to adapt to it. That’s why studies have shown that moving high school start times results in fewer late arrivals, less sleeping in first-period classes, and, in the end, better learning and SAT scores. Parents don’t have to like the disruption that these changes will produce, but they should realize that their children will benefit from them.

Robert Stickgold

Director

Center for Sleep and Cognition

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Boston

‘Worth the hassle’? Ask the mother of two elementary students

Re “New school schedules worth the hassle’’ (Editorial, Dec. 9): I’m a parent of two kids at the Haley School in Roslindale. The Haley is a K-8 full-inclusion school. Our bell times were changed from 8:30-2:30 to 7:15-1:15.

My children are 5 and 7. We walk to school and leave a half hour before bell time. So we would leave at 6:45, when it is often still dark. My kids would have to wake up at 5:45. They would have to go to sleep at 6:45 p.m. Do you know how long they would have with their father each day? Forty-five minutes, all of which would be spent eating and getting ready for bed.

I don’t understand how anyone thought this schedule was sustainable for families. I did fill out the survey that was sent around and went to one of the meetings. No one ever mentioned a 7:15 start.

Could we switch schools? It’s highly unlikely that there would be space. And why bother, given the similar start times of all but one of the other schools around us.

I’m angry that the Globe promptly came out and endorsed these start times without waiting to see what the community had to say. These changes will adversely affect the quality of life of families throughout the city. It’s not fair to our children.

Sherry Eskin

Jamaica Plain

Mitigate the ill effects of changes

I applaud Boston Public Schools for its decision to move secondary school start times to 8 a.m. and later. We know conclusively that adolescents learn best when they go to school later. However, I am distressed that this long- awaited announcement included drastic changes to start times for BPS elementary schools, many of which will now start well before 8 a.m.

Families are understandably worried about child-care costs and lengthy days. In addition, our high school students need reassurance that BPS will provide the resources to maintain athletics and other extracurriculars, and that students who need to work will have the support to do so.

BPS has promised that cost savings from any time changes will be reinvested in the schools, but we’ve seen no plan for the strategic expenditure of those funds. The school department and Mayor Walsh must commit to expend the necessary resources to get all BPS students to school at a time that is optimal for their health and education, with no loss of services.

Sara Barcan

Roslindale

The writer is a Boston Latin Academy parent.

Current outcry among parents might offer lens on busing clashes of 1970s

While I empathize with the many families who feel that the rug has been pulled out from under them with abrupt and drastic changes in school start times, I also view this as a teachable moment in empathy itself. Think how parents felt when they received a letter 42 years ago telling them that, rather than their child walking to their local school, their child would be assigned to another school across town that would require a bus ride.

In both cases, credible research has been used to have the ends justify the means. But all the research in the world can’t weaken parents’ innate resolve to protect their child.

Maybe many of the parents who are relatively new to the city and are affected by the planned changes in start times, and who casually equate racism with the antibusing forces of those days in 1970s, now will have a better understanding that things are never that black and white.

Judith Nee

Winthrop