BATON ROUGE, LA – East Baton Rouge Parish Schools are weighing a plan to delay start times for middle and high school students, citing research that teens aren’t biologically wired to function before sunrise. But while officials say it’s about student performance, parents are mostly thrilled to gain a half-hour more each morning to shout about forgotten folders, unbrushed teeth, and whether chips count as a vegetable.
They also hope the move will ease its ongoing bus driver shortage—though critics note that moving the clock doesn’t magically create drivers, it just gives them more time to explain why the bus still didn’t show up on time, or show up… ever.
The change is being framed as pro-student, though some wonder if it’s just the latest chapter in the district’s war on expectations. “Kids are tired because they stay up playing Xbox until 2 a.m.,” said one parent. “But sure, let’s just keep pushing school start times back til eventually they start at lunch.”
If approved, the changes could begin this fall—giving students more rest, giving parents more gray hairs, and giving the district more time to pretend this isn’t just enabling a generation that considers 10 a.m. “early.”
