-
While the state legislature passed a measure to give high school students more sleep, educators question how to implement it as it relates to school bus routes. PHOTO/FIRST LIGHT SAFETY
School officials will soon be gearing up to push back start times for many high schools under a new law that mandates changes to the beginning of the school day — but some lawmakers and education experts are wary of the challenges that could come with such a change.
The changes stem from House Bill 733 approved by the Legislature earlier this month and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Under the law, which goes into effect in July 2026, middle schools will be prevented from beginning the “instructional day” earlier than 8 a.m., while high schools will be barred from starting the school day before 8:30 a.m.
High schools will experience the most significant changes. About 48 percent of Florida’s public high schools start school before 7:30 a.m., according to the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.
Senate bill sponsor Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, and other supporters of the measure touted the mandate as a way to help students get more sleep before the school day begins.
“This is one of those pieces of legislation where we understand the ‘why’ very well. Studies, medical science, has shown that this is what’s best. What we’re doing now is not what’s best for our kids. For the adolescents especially,” Burgess said during a May 4 Senate debate on the proposal.
As the bill advanced, Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando, repeatedly raised concerns about increased costs and other challenges for school districts. In a recent interview with The News Service of Florida, Antone commended the idea of trying to ensure students get more sleep. But he also questioned whether imposing start times on districts throughout the state was “well-thought out.”
“It was just something that sounded like a great idea,” Antone said. “And then they were like, we’re going to pass it and y’all are going to figure it out.”
Antone represents an area that includes one of Florida’s largest school districts, Orange County Public Schools. Antone told the News Service that a one-size-fits-all approach could put an outsized strain on Orange and other large districts.
“It puts some hard start times in place. And even though it gives the school districts until 2026 to begin implementing the plan, I’m not sure this bill should be dictating what’s best for Orange County Schools, what’s best for Miami-Dade, what’s best for Broward, Palm Beach, Duval,” Antone said.
Lawmakers also during the 2023 legislative session earmarked $5 million to help implement the start-time changes, including a requirement that the state Department of Education survey “six department-selected school superintendents which represent two small, two medium, and two large counties regarding the estimated costs to implement such school start times.”
But Antone warned the changes could lead to much larger costs. For example, the later start times could force large districts to purchase more school buses and hire additional bus drivers.
“That money begins to add up to potentially easily $100 (million), $200 million dollars,” Antone said.
Chris Doolin, a lobbyist who represents the Small School District Council Consortium, also raised concerns about the bill’s potential impacts on small districts. As an example, Doolin argued that shifting the order of different grade levels’ start times could pose safety concerns.
“Right off the bat, you’re going to have elementary and younger kids at the side of the road at bus stops earlier, and there’s a safety concern there,” Doolin told the News Service.
And Antone and Doolin both noted that some high-school students have after-school jobs.
At least two large districts already have studied the issue of changing start times. In 2019, Orange County’s district sought community input on potential plans to change start-times. Of the options presented to respondents, only one would have complied with the new law, one proposed starting high schools’ days at 8:45 a.m. and middle schools at 10:15 a.m. Survey results showed that 67 percent of respondents opposed the plan.
The bill also requires school districts to inform local communities “about the health, safety, and academic impacts of sleep deprivation on middle school and high school students and the benefits of a later school start time and discuss local strategies” to implement the new start-times.
Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, said she appreciated the three-year period for implementation, but added that her reservation about the bill centered on not taking community input prior to putting the changes in place.
“I appreciate the fact that you have given a three-year period for school districts to talk about it with all of those stakeholders. The challenge I have for that is, I wish we would do that first before we actually made it a bill that we’re voting on to put it in law,” Davis said.
