WCMS Start Time

      Would you want to wake up at 5 am to go to school? Kids at West Clermont Middle School do this every day. West Clermont Middle School's start time is 7:00 am, and many students have to wake up very early. Studies prove that students in middle school need more sleep and can’t learn well early in the morning. There may be a solution to this crazy early start time.

      The first issue with school starting so early is students can't focus and engage very early in the morning. Most students don’t get many hours of sleep because of how early the start time is. If students don’t get the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep every night it affects their attention span and how much they can focus. It also affects their ability to learn. The whole point of school is to learn, but if students don’t have enough sleep it is very difficult to learn. Another issue with the school start time being so early is that it makes students get worse grades. This is because without sleep it is harder for students to retain information. So on a test if they can’t remember the answers, their grade will plummet. Teachers even agree school start time should be later, they say, “It is like teaching a blank wall in the morning.” Students do not engage, making teachers jobs harder because they can’t teach something if no one is engaging and answering questions.

      Many people might be thinking, just change the starting time by 1-2 hours, but it's not that simple. There are many different things that make it hard to solve this problem. One thing that makes it hard is busing; this is because the buses in our community are being used for all of the elementary schools and the middle school. This matters because the elementary schools are using the buses from 8:00-8:30, and if we buy more buses it will cost thousands of dollars. Another thing that makes changing the starting time hard is that some students watch their younger siblings after school but with a later start time students will be released out of school later and will not be able to do that. This means that the middle school students will not be able to care for their younger siblings. Which affects the parents because they will then have to come home from work earlier to take care of their younger kids or hire someone to babysit, but there may be a solution to this problem.

      There is only one clear solution to this problem, which is that school should start at 6:00 pm and end at 11:10 pm. This is an obvious solution for many different reasons. One reason why school should start at 6:00 pm is because no schools are starting at that time so the busing issue will be gone. This means that the community does not need to pay thousands of dollars for more buses. This is because the starting times of all the schools do not interfere with each other. Another reason why school should start at 6:00 pm and end at 11:00 pm is because most teens are usually awake at this time. This matters because the students will not be as tired as they usually are because they are already used to being awake at that time. So students will be able to understand and retain information better, learn better, and engage more. This school start and end time also benefits families in the community because when younger siblings get ready to go to school their older siblings can help them. Also when younger siblings that are in elementary school get home from school the older siblings will already be home so they can watch them until their parents get home from work. This is why a later start time would be more beneficial for our community.

      There may be some problems in this schedule, but there are also solutions. What about sports, clubs, electives, and lunch? Well, for sports the school can have sports start a few hours before school starts so students can practice their sport and have time to come home, shower, and get ready for school. Next for electives/clubs, they will be optional. Students can pick to come before school starts to participate in electives or clubs. Those will be after sports so students will not have to choose between electives/clubs and sports. Also students do not need to go home after electives/clubs because school will start right after electives/clubs end. Instead of eating lunch, students will get to eat dinner. You can choose to pack or buy like usual. Those are how the community can solve these concerns.

      Our community has been trying to solve this problem for a long time and this is the most obvious thing to do. People keep trying to have school start at 8:00 am but all they had to do was think a little harder so they could realize that this is what West Clermont Middle School needs.