Written By: Kate Di Guglielmo, Chief Editor
TRUTH: Riverside Poly Students and family voice their opinions on the new California school start times.
Throughout the world students are widely recognized as sleep deprived. Attempting to fix this issue, on October 13, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill No. 328. This makes it so middle schools can start no earlier than 8:00 a.m., and high schools can start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. This bill went into effect this school year. In response to this, Riverside Poly High School students and parents question the weaknesses and strengths of this late start time that will supposedly help students get extra rest.
“I still have to wake up early anyway because of
my dad and brothers schedule.”
Sakura Snyder (10) – Poly student
The average work day is 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. meaning when school starts at 8:30 A.M. it becomes a major inconvenience for the common working people. “I still have to wake up early anyway, because of my dad and brothers schedule,” says Sakura Snyder, a sophomore at Poly High School. The whole purpose of Senate Bill No. 328 was to help children in school get more sleep, but instead it is making a countless number of students stay at school longer than necessary. Not only are students irritated by this, but also parents. Cindy Melo, a parent of a Poly High School Student is “still dropping [her] kid off before 8:00 [A.M.] because of traffic,” leaving her child to sit on school grounds for at least a half hour before school start time with no educational purpose, due to the effects of the new bill.
Not only is the start time an issue, but the end time has also proven to create problems for the Poly community. Due to the time being later in the morning, it sets back the start of everyone’s after school activities. Isabel Yrungaray a model student at Poly High School explains how the Senate Bill is “super inconvenient” and it “pushes back activities,” further stressing how the new time is more of a difficulty than a convenience. While one’s practice may have been at 3:00 p.m., before the change, it now may be pushed to 4:00 p.m., leading students days to be longer and make it so they “have less time in the evening to do homework and relax” as said by Poly sophomore, Hailie Escano.
However, this is not to say that everyone is against the schedule. Some – like Poly junior Sophia Jarrett, believe it offers “more time in the morning” to get things done. Although the extra time is helpful, this is not what Governor Newsom was hoping to address – sleep deprivation. The underlying question remains: Is anyone getting more sleep now? Nonetheless, only time will tell how students and family members will adapt to this new change, but for now, the majority of the Bear Family that are voicing their opinions long for the past when the school day ended earlier.
