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We Do Them a Disservice

I read in your columns that the high school start time is again under discussion and I assume we taxpayers should brace for the next spending increase.

It’s no surprise that high schoolers may be sleep deprived; remember when we were their age? Accepting this, has any consideration been given to the obvious, simplest, and zero-cost solution? That would be getting to bed a little earlier on school nights.

This surely would be better than disrupting the long established bus schedules, which would seem likely to require the purchase of more buses and hiring of extra drivers.

It is also likely that if a later wake up time is established, all that will happen is the young people will stay up later at night, and we will be back where we started.

After graduation, there will be many careers that require “unsociable” working hours and these require sleep patterns to suit. By patronizing young people in this way, we do them a disservice by insulating them from real life conditions and the responsibilities that come with them.

I urge our Board of Education to look at this issue realistically.

David Roberts

Guilford