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Mijares: L at er school st art t imes is no - L ompoc Record (CA) - Oct ober 17, 2019 October 17, 2019 | Lompoc Record (CA) | Staff Writer

Editor's note: T his commentary is in response to: "A trifecta for children?" A Dan Walters column published Oct. 1.

As educators, we are always looking to improve the well-being and success of each of our students. In his column, Dan Walters opines that Senate Bill 328 furthers that g oal by mandating later start times for middle and hig h school classes.

It may be true that students with better sleep patterns can be more successful, and, let's face it, we all want our kids to be well-rested as they start their days.

Yet a multi-year study in the research journal SLEEP and finding s from researchers at the UC Davis Sleep Laboratory challeng e the arg ument that students would g et persistent benefits from a shift in their school start time.

Not only would mandating a later start time across the board not have the desired effect, it would impose a hardship on too many working families. In fact, this bill would disproportionately burden students whose socio-economic status is already a sig nificant educational barrier.

While it may be easy enoug h for some families with flexible schedules to adjust, in some communities, parents who are working just to make ends meet don't have the luxury of delaying the start of their workday.

T he indisputable reality in many of our communities is that students have to beg in their day at the same time as their parents.

T hese children are already arriving early to school if their parents are commuting , are farmworkers, or work in construction, restaurants or retail. Even with later start times, many of these parents will still have to drop their kids off at school before they g o to work.

T hese students won't be g etting any more sleep, and the additional idle unsupervised time alone could put them in dang er. Parents shouldn't have to choose between keeping their jobs and ensuring the safety of their children.

And this doesn't take into account the back end of the school day, when many families rely on older sibling s to look after young er children. SB 328 by Sen. Anthony Portantino, Democrat from La Cañada Flintridg e, would also push after-school activities later into the evening s.

In California, 45% of children live in low-income households and 46% of those families are sing le- parent families. T he idea that SB 328 will not harm any students ig nores the real-world constraints

under which working -class families and sing le parents operate.

I am disappointed that Mr. Walters falls into the trap of characterizing arg uments ag ainst SB 328 as adult "convenience above the welfare of the children they are supposed to be educating ."

Maybe he assumes that every community has the means to adjust their work schedules. Perhaps a few can, but certainly not all. And each community is in a better position than the state to decide what is best for local students and their parents.

CI T AT I ON ( M LA S T YLE)CI T AT I ON ( M LA S T YLE)

Writer, Staff. "Al Mijares: Later school start times is no solution for teenag ers." Lompoc Record, T he (CA), sec. Columnists, 17 Oct. 2019. NewsBank: Access World News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view? p=AWNB&docref=news/176A7CC214CD9F60. Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.

Copyrig ht, 2019, T he Lompoc Re cord, Lompoc, CA