Wayzata Elementary School Start Times

We strongly oppose the option to change elementary school start time to 7:20am.

I don't want early time for my little people. I have one in each school. If I have a choice I would rather have my high schooler tired than elem. My little ones don't get up until 7:45. Why would you want to, considering the results from the early start time for elem. Already?

Option b is ludicrous, lets put our smallest kids out on a cold, dark corner every morning, hoping that we didn't have a snow storm the night before and the bus isn't late or god forbid the roads are icy and someone doesn't see the kid in the dark. NO more early drop off at Homebase, lets save that for the FOUR hours after school. Then make our middle schooler hang out at home alone until the bus comes since most parents need to leave for work by 7:30 am. How many kids will oversleep and miss the bus?? I know when my kid was in middle school she would not have gotten up by herself ever. But hey its ok, they won't get home until 5 pm at the earliest especially since with this plan, the middle schools that are the farthest away and have the longest rides will now be competing with full on rush hour. A normal bus ride which averages 40 minutes will now take an hour plus for MOST middle age children since the three middle schools are all on the southern portion of Plymouth. I guess its a good plan since really those kids are only at the middle school for THREE years and lets face it, the older kids really do need that extra hour of sleep they will now get. So now we have the middle schooler who is sent home with more projects and homework than ever before, if they have extra curricular activities those often start at 5-6pm, so they get off the bus only to get into a car to go to practice, then they come home and do homework until 9-10?? REALLY?? Is it worth it for a 50 minute later start time? The buses now are so overcrowded (3/seat) that no homework could even be attempted. But then we would need to send a flashlight with them to do homework and walk home with since it starts getting dark by 4:30 most days. And forget about using your middle or high schooler for economical babysitting, they are sitting on a bus somewhere while the youngest are out of school before you have even finished your work lunch hour. While I agree that maybe the elementary scho

Option b is ludicrous, lets put our smallest kids out on a cold, dark corner every morning, hoping that we didn't have a snow storm the night before and the bus isn't late or god forbid the roads are icy and someone doesn't see the kid in the dark. NO more early drop off at Homebase, lets save that for the FOUR hours after school. Then make our middle schooler hang out at home alone until the bus comes since most parents need to leave for work by 7:30 am. How many kids will oversleep and miss the bus?? I know when my kid was in middle school she would not have gotten up by herself ever. But hey its ok, they won't get home until 5 pm at the earliest especially since with this plan, the middle schools that are the farthest away and have the longest rides will now be competing with full on rush hour. A normal bus ride which averages 40 minutes will now take an hour plus for MOST middle age children since the three middle schools are all on the southern portion of Plymouth. I guess its a good plan since really those kids are only at the middle school for THREE years and lets face it, the older kids really do need that extra hour of sleep they will now get. So now we have the middle schooler who is sent home with more projects and homework than ever before, if they have extra curricular activities those often start at 5-6pm, so they get off the bus only to get into a car to go to practice, then they come home and do homework until 9-10?? REALLY?? Is it worth it for a 50 minute later start time? The buses now are so overcrowded (3/seat) that no homework could even be attempted. But then we would need to send a flashlight with them to do homework and walk home with since it starts getting dark by 4:30 most days. And forget about using your middle or high schooler for economical babysitting, they are sitting on a bus somewhere while the youngest are out of school before you have even finished your work lunch hour. While I agree that maybe the elementary scho

While I agree that teenagers and adolescents should have more sleep time, the focus should be on educating them to go to bed earlier, rather than get up later. The ancient Chinese medicine and the current research on western medicine tell us it is ideal for everyone to go to bed before 11:00pm. If every teenage and adolescent could do that, then the current starting time could work very well for them. I am totally against moving elementary school starting time earlier since it sacrifices young kids' sleeping time when they definitely need more sleep than teenagers and adolescents. Also, considering that the young kids need supervision after school, the current proposal puts enormous burden on the working families.

Based upon the research, it makes no sense for elementary to start as early as the proposed time. Not to mention that I am unwilling to send my young children to stand on a street corner in the dark for most of the year. My child enjoys after school activities, in order to accommodate all children - they would move these elementary kids to an earlier activity time. HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GET THERE? Not everyone in this district is a stay at home parent. Meanwhile, the kids who have access to cars and are of age to drive and carpool will not be having their activities at the times that all of us parents are getting home. I don't want to hear about money, this district passed a huge $$ referendum for what I believe is useless ipads. The kids are using them more for social media and you tube instead of learning. Parents are now cut out of communications because everything is done on the ipads. The schools say they are saving no money on copies since the ipads came about, that was one of their "biggest pros" of moving to an ipad system. Not to mention that not all the teachers use ical, and they consistently have kids turn assignments in on e backpack, and there seems to be a glitch a fair amount of the time. My point is, the district can get money for non evidence based items, so they should be able to provide bussing if they are trying to move start times based solely upon research.

Our high schooler wouldn't be home to watch our younger child. This would cause a financial hardship for our family, let alone a scheduling nightmare! This district spends an obscene amount of money..there is no reason they can't hire a few more buses to have a later start time for the high schoolers.

there is no way I could get my kindergarteners out of bed at 6am.

Little kids already have such a long day, no reason to get them up that early and miss a good breakfast. Early High school starts is good practice to get used to being up early for work. My 2 cents.

The proposed changes are not solving the problem but just shifting the impact of early start from high school kids to elementary kids without taking into account the needs of kids 5-10 yrs of age.

Another negative impact for working parents...almost 4 hours at Home Base after school care. Not ideal.

Prefer not to change elementary school time and make start time later for high school kids. Let kids sleep well and eat healthy breakfast instead of standing in dark cold early morning at bus stop! For their good benefit and valuable learning experiences in school.

I am strongly in favor of status quo. Moving up start times for elementary kids is not worth the small benefit to the high school kids.

6:45 is too early for young kids, especially in the winter! The family also needs spend much more money for day care!

10 years ago Featured

Thank you for organizing this petition! Our family agrees 100% that the direct flip can't work unless all start times are reasonable and so do the experts at the National Sleep Foundation. We must make evidence based decisions for ALL students in the district.

Why change something that is already working. I bought my house in Plymouth so my girls can be Wayzata school district. Test scores are great and above may other schools. It's working don't change times. High school kids will have less time to do homework after school because they have to be at work or are in many activities. No high school kid is going to get up early to do there homework. The time from 2:30 and 4:30 is the best time for my daughter to do homework. Around super time things get hectic (eating super, cleaning up, doing chores and running errons. Also that is the time she does her homework because her sister (middle school) is not home from school and I'm still at work. The only thing that bugs her at that time is the dogs.

Our family vote for option A-Status Quo Scenario. We are strongly against Option B-Research Aligned Scenario. It is extremely unfair to guarantee high school students' sleeping time at the cost of our younger kids. It is particularly not proper for Minnesota Cold weather. I can't imagine a 5 or 6 years old kid walk in the cold dark winter morning, stumble on the icy road and stand in the chilly wind,waiting for the buses. Not to mention the early childhood developmental hardship due to the lack of the sleep, the financial burden to cover the cost of day care and the reduced family time when they need to go to bed very early. My kids are now at oakwood elementary. The school starts at 7:45. The bus picks them up at 7:16. It is already very early. They complained they are so tired in the school that they fall asleep on the ground almost every day. I don't know how you-the decision makers feel when you hear your precious ones say they fall asleep on the ground at the school while other kids running around them. It breaks my heart. It breaks many parents' heart. So please for the children 's development healthiness and the family wellbeing, don't let our little ones sacrifice. Of course we can't sacrifice the high school students either. The best solution is adding buses. If the other school district can do, our school district can do it as well.

How reckless is this, how do you expect families to work around this. Or are you proposing FREE home base?

Dear school board and associated teams: You MUST consider the needs of elementary and middle school children in this process - mental, physical and academic well being, not to mention the execution of the current plan of starting elementary school at 7:20a. Imagine having small children aged 5-11 wait for the bus in the dark winter morning days at 6:45am or earlier! That is neither safe not should it be an option. I urge you to KEEP elementary and middle school start times the same while giving high school kids the extra sleep they need and adjust bussing needs to accommodate ALL of the kids needs in this wonderful school district of ours. We're a smart bunch - we can figure out a solution that works for all. Thank you for your careful consideration.

Let's not make little ones suffer. Reduce the pressure everyone puts on the high school kids to over-achieve. The anxiety problem at the high school is worse than anyone has ever seen. Perhaps lightening the load of homework for these kids might help them get to bed earlier. We need to prioritize our time spent on school, sports, extracurriculars, and what always seems to come in last place, family time. No wonder everyone is so disconnected. Put down the phones, put down the balls, put down the pencils and go back to the basics which is human connections starting with family. Leave the little kids start time the same. Get more buses for the bigger kids. End of story.