I’ve never been a fan of delayed school start times for high school students. The data just don’t impress me. But mostly I think delayed start times should be just one component of a broad community-wide initiative to address sleep hygiene that includes discussions about bedtimes, after-school schedules, and overuse of electronic devices. And I don’t see those discussions happening.
In most communities, delaying start times for adolescents will mean that younger children will be starting their school days earlier. Buses and drivers are finite and expensive resources that must be shared. Although I have heard it used as an argument against delayed school starts for high schoolers, an earlier start time for grade-school age children is not one of the downsides I include on my list of negatives. In fact, from my perspective, getting youngsters to school early is one of the few advantages of a delayed school start program for high school.
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Underwritten by the Reebok athletic footwear manufacturer, the BOKS (Build Our Kids’ Success) program began in 2009 when a group of mothers in Massachusetts organized a before-school activity program in their local grade school (“A before-school exercise program may help children thrive,” by Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times, Feb. 14, 2018). They may have been motivated primarily by the need to survive those difficult morning hours, but clearly they weren’t alone in their concerns, and the concept has spread to include 3,000 schools worldwide.