Schools

Fairfax County Takes Steps To Start School Later

Will Montgomery County follow its neighbor's efforts to send teens to school later in the morning?

 

Are today’s students up and out of the house too early?

The question has garnered a lot of attention on Patch sites around Montgomery County. Over said they’d prefer school hours to start later, and one of our bloggers has been advocating later start times. Now it seems that our neighbors in Fairfax County, Va., are beginning a third official attempt to push back school start times for students in high school.

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“After 14 years of discussion and two formal attempts to address the issue on its own, the Fairfax County school board will look to a consultant to help it move forward on a resolution to start the system's high school schools after 8 a.m.,” . 

One of the biggest issues with changing school start times is coordinating bus schedules for drivers making multiple pick-ups and drop-offs each day. In Fairfax County, 1,081 buses transport about 130,000 students each day. Montgomery County a switch would likely be similarly complicated, with 1,264 buses transporting 98,000 students, according to Montgomery County Public School figures.

Find out what's happening in Takoma Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But according to MCPS officials, the school system has no plans to emulate Fairfax’s efforts.

While some county residents have raised the subject in the past, there is no proposal currently in front of the school system, said Dana Tofig, spokesman for MCPS.

Do you think the cost of reorganizing school start times and bus schedules is worth it? Would you push for this to happen in Montgomery County?


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