Changing the start and end time of primary and middle school in Battle Ground to 9:10 a.m. and 3:40 p.m. is a bad idea. The current research regarding the benefits of a later start time applies to high school students, not primary school students.
Younger children, given a proper bedtime, are up well before last year’s start time. Working parents will likely have to pay more for additional morning care. Students riding the bus may not get home until after 4:30 p.m. This makes participation in after-school activities nearly impossible. Students will not have enough time to rest and do homework before sports. Students will now need to stay up later to make up homework, aggravating any fatigue.
A child is at their best earlier in the day. As the school day goes on, their attention wanes.
Battle Ground Public Schools is currently failing to meet basic state standards for education. Those failures will only worsen now that we are losing nearly an hour of instruction time for the younger children as they will be barely paying attention after 3 in the afternoon.
