[dillon]

My mother works for a school district in California. There was an open hearing around moving the starting school time from 8:00 am to 7:00 am. There's been countless research showing that this is generally bad for children to wake up this early (I'm sorry for not linking a reference).

At the hearing, there are some words that go something like "Children come first" printed on some wall in a large font. My mother made her case that starting so early isn't a good idea, and is bad for children and they may as well remove those words. The reason for the change is that teachers generally live pretty close to the school they teach at. They also have a car. So, for them they can wake up at 6:30 and make it on time. Whereas kids, especially poor kids, might live further and may be taking a bus where the bus pick up times could be as early as 6:00 am so the kids are waking up even earlier just to make it. An early starting time, generally, benefited the teachers as they can wake up later and they get out of class around 2:00 pm. The after-school programs then rake in cash by keeping kids longer since most parents don't get off work until 5:00 pm.

tl;dr the early starting times were to make teachers happy. Good on California to put students over teachers. Now, if only we can raise teacher's salaries.

[topkai22]

I'm also pretty sure at the higher grade levels (Middle to high school) it is partially about keeping other professions out of sports coaching. If high school starts at 930a and ends at 4p, an awful lot of working professionals could still be there by 415-430p to coach. When high school let out at 245, it's a lot harder.

[Gibbon1]

> tl;dr the early starting times were to make teachers happy.

I've wondered about adverse section being the cause of this. People that don't wake up early typically won't become teachers. Eventually all your teachers and staff are 'morning people' like my dad. My dad loved going into work at 6am. And getting home at 3 or 4pm.