Health & Fitness
What time is it…or what time should it be? When should the children go to school?
Another case of the type of thinking that will bring continued excellence to the Nanuet Schools. Have the incumbents even brought this up?
Determining the time for the school day is something that is an interesting concept to consider. Having three children in elementary grades (as of next school year), I have a suggestion that is not only practical, but also follows educational research.
My three children are regularly up early, easily by 7:00, often an hour or more earlier. They are charged up and ready to go, and getting them ready for school often leaves significant dead time that is filled with doing extra work or watching a small amount of TV.
High school students, on the other hand, are often difficult if not impossible to wake up at these early hours. They prefer to sleep in. I remember that being the case when I was in high school, so no doubt this is not just a singular instance.
Find out what's happening in Nanuetfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Education research has often stated that if you have the younger students go early and the older students go late, their academic achievement level goes up, in some cases dramatically. I will not bore you with numbers, but here is a link to a representative study for your consideration:
Find out what's happening in Nanuetfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The obvious impact would be a great change in extra curricular scheduling, some home care issues, etc., but the study did indicate that 92 percent of the parents preferred the new start times.
The younger students would conversely start their day earlier, basically swapping the school day schedule. This would result in some initial issues with waiting for buses in the dark during the winter and what to do with the children after the school day ends earlier, but, these are issues faced by many parents even with the current schedule.
South Orangetown Schools have already made the move. Their high school students will begin their day at 8:15 beginning this September. They have made arrangements to work out the extra curricular activity schedule still work and are going to have many happier students, parents and others.
This type of schedule must be considered and implemented if it is going to increase academic achievement. Will it take some getting used to? Of course it will, as all change does. But this would be something that would be of great benefit to all in our community.