Governor signs bill pushing back school hours
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday that pushes school start times later.
Under the new law, middle schools will start classes at 8 a.m. or after, while high schools will start classes at 8:30 a.m. or after. Optional early classes will still be allowed.
The law applies to public and charter schools, though rural school districts are exempt. The new start times go into effect by July 1, 2022, or when a school’s collective bargaining agreement with its employees expires, whichever is later.
State Sen. Anthony Portantino, who authored the bill, cheered the news in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“Our children’s health and welfare win!!! Thank you Governor Newsom for signing SB 328 to push high school and middle school start time later in the morning. This will have a tremendous benefit to student health and academic performance.”
At Norwalk High School, first period currently begins at 7:55 a.m. except on “late start” days, when classes start at 10:05 a.m.
John Glenn High School follows the same bell schedule.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association all recommend that middle and high schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later to help ensure that students arrive awake and ready to learn.
But more than four in five public middle and high schools in the US start earlier than that, according to a 2015 CDC study.
In a statement, the Downey Unified School District said it disagreed with the state’s decision to take away local control but acknowledged it was prepared to comply with the law.
“While we disagree with Sacramento again eroding local control, we anticipated this law would most likely pass,” read Downey Unified’s statement. “Beginning in 2016, a Board of Education Goal was established and a committee was formed to analyze the various modifications that would be needed should this law eventually pass.
“Now that it has passed, we feel that we have already laid the groundwork to have a smooth transition in the coming years. Moving forward, there should be minimal impact at the middle school level as three of our four schools currently have start times of 7:55 a.m. For the transition at the high school level, we will resume our efforts in collaboration with our different stakeholder groups now that the bill has passed.
“Moving forward, the specific language of the law will determine the best ways to proceed to make this change a manageable transition for our parents, students and staff.”