Argumentative Essay Example: School Should Start Early

Before school care can be over 1,000 dollars a year per student if school starts later than 9:00 am. With a later start time parents would also need to use before school care more in order for them to get to work on time. A lot of schools start at 7:30 or earlier. Schools are trying to figure out if it would be better to keep an early start time or move it back to something later. Both early and late start times have benefits. School should continue to be at the time it does because it is expensive, sports schedules can get messed up, and it can be harder for parents who are struggling financially.

School should continue to start early because it is expensive to have it start later. In paragraph 2 of “Fairfax, Montgomery Officials to Share Experience Delaying School Start Times,” written by Cindy Huang says, “Fairfax County is spending $5 million to push back school start times by nearly an hour this school year, from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m.” In order to have a later school start time they have to spend over 5 million dollars which is very expensive. In the passage “Changing School Start Times has Ripple Effects - And Those Ripples Could Sink Many Families.” by Joannah Haney, “For the 30 percent of kids under 18 living at or below the poverty line in Boston, that’s one-third of the $2,100 monthly income for a family of four.” For a lot of kids before or after school care can take up to a third of their families income which would be worse if school started later. The table “Before-School Program Fee Schedule” shows that if school starts later then the fees for before-school care would cost more. For example if a school starts at 9:05 then the yearly fee for before school care would be over a thousand dollars, and is even more if school starts later. In order to help out those families more school should continue to start early.

School should continue to start early because sports schedules can get messed up. Some people will disagree and say that a later start time gets more sleep. I challenge this because it is not true for everyone. Cindy Huang also states in paragraph 22, “Torin Dunn, a junior at McLean High, said the later start time pushes back his sports schedule, which means he has less time to do homework after school. So he stays up later, and he doesn't sleep more than he did last year, he said.” Even though school starts later, people that play sports get their schedules to get messed up causing them to not get any more sleep than if there was an earlier start. If school starts later then it will also end later meaning that if you have sports they would get pushed back and probably made much shorter because of nighttime arriving sooner after school. This will give all the sports teams a big disadvantage of having way less practice than a school that starts earlier and has more practice time. Finally, if a sport has a game or match right after normal school ending they might not be able to go because their school starts later. This could cause the whole league to have to reschedule most of their games but it also might make the school not to do that sport if it can’t get rescheduled.

School should start early because it can be harder for parents who financially struggle if school starts later. Paragraph 11 of Johannah Haney’s article states that, “So in order to facilitate her basic needs as a young child, I may have no choice but to stop working, or work drastically reduced hours.” If a parent tries to stay home for their child they will have to work a lot less making less money. Paragraph 8 of the article says, “After-school care is for financially advantaged families.” Even if the parent tries to have their child go to before and after school care then they will likely still not make enough money because the care is very expensive. “But for those who can’t stagger working hours — specifically single parents or families who don’t have any wiggle room on working hours — kids often see themselves to bus stops in the morning, then wait an hour or so after school, alone, until parents return,” declares paragraph 6 of the article. Single parents often have to leave children to stay alone for a long time which is not good but if they tried to be home for them then they would make enough money to provide for them. This would be made worse by a later school start time because they would have to spend more time in the morning alone.

If school would be moved to start later it would be more expensive, mess up sports schedules, and be harder for financially struggling parents. School starting later would cause many problems. Even the most prominent argument of a later start time, it gives you more sleep, is true for everyone. Some people who have sports don’t get any more sleep. A later start time only makes some students more awake at school while an earlier start time helps some families from running out of money. Schools should continue to start early.