A new law making its way through Florida that would allow students to catch some more Zs is being snoozed by lawmakers in Tallahassee. The Florida legislature, set to resume in March, will tackle the question of the start time for Florida public middle and high schools, with the focus revolving around students’ sleep and parents’ work schedules.
Lawmakers are hardly on the same page, however, and not everyone thinks it’s a great idea to let teens sleep in. On Jan. 17, Sen. Jennifer Bradley, who represents District 6 in Fleming Island, an area south of Jacksonville, filed Senate Bill 296 (SB 296) which proposes to “delete” the changes mandated by Florida House Bill 733 (FL HB 733) and keep middle and high school start times the same as they are currently.
The issue seemed to have been settled during the 2023 legislative session. In May 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed FL HB 733 into law, requiring that all public schools in the state adopt later start times to allow students to get more sleep.
The law requires that by July 1, 2026, middle schools cannot start their instructional day earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools cannot start earlier than 8:30 a.m. This is a change from most middle schools and high schools in the state that previously started between 7:30 and 8 a.m.
The law also requires that school districts communicate with the local community about the impacts of sleep deprivation on students, the benefits of later start times and how early start times can negatively impact students.
FL HB 733 was enacted in response to a 2014 policy statement made by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), said Tasha Burke-Peart, Manager of Compliance/Special projects in the office of the Chief Operating Officer at the School District of Palm Beach County, in an email.
“The [statement referenced] two components of adolescents and sleep. The first is delayed melatonin, and the second is an altered sleep drive that can cause adolescents to fall asleep at slower rates,” said Burke-Peat.
This combination can cause students to not get the recommended eight to ten hours of sleep throughout the night and feel groggy when waking up early for school.
The state legislature highlighted numerous health, safety and academic performance benefits to pushing back start times so that students – specifically older students who are more susceptible to sleep deprivation – can get more sleep in the mornings.
At a lengthy four-hour Palm Beach County School Board Workshop/Special Meeting held on June 5, 2024, Joseph Sanches, chief operating officer of the School District of Palm Beach County, presented three different options that would rearrange school start times in the county to comply with the new law. These options consider the tiered bussing system the district runs on, after-school activities, and rush-hour traffic.
As not every school in the state has mandated these later start times yet, districts like Palm Beach County have been garnering community input about later start times by sending out a survey for residents to share their preferences and concerns.
Nov. 18 was the last day for Palm Beach County residents, educators, businesses and other important stakeholders to weigh in on the three start time changes presented by Sanches.
However, Floridians remain divided on these changes, considering it would shake up both students’ and parents’ schedules and routines.
“Nearly 65% of respondents [from the survey] would like the school start times to remain the same,” said Burke-Peart. Parents are concerned about morning and aftercare availability, after-school and extracurricular programs, students’ employment opportunities, teachers’ availability and traffic which could all become issues due to the change in start time.
Some local students, like Mila Nevis, a freshman at Boca Raton Community High School, agree that they feel more productive at school and are routinely on time with a later start. The school day currently starts at 8:30 a.m.
“I think starting at 8:30 a.m. is beneficial. You can keep a kid at school later but waking up early – it just doesn’t work,” said Nevis.
Nevis explained that she prefers option three which would continue to have high school start at 8:30 a.m. In the mornings, she prefers having her parents drop her off at school instead of taking the bus, but if the start time at school changed, it would prevent her parents from being able to do so.
Similar to Nevis, Frederick Kent, a junior at Boca Raton Community High School, agreed that 8:30 a.m. was an ideal start time for high school, saying that an earlier start would be a challenge.
“I have friends that go to Spanish River High School which starts at 7:30 a.m. and they take the bus, so they wake up around 5 a.m. – I don’t want to do that,” said Kent.
Some students, like Anna Vasquez, a junior at Boca Raton Community High School, say they’re very much in favor of the late start time and would prefer to go in even later. She explained how the extra time in the morning to sleep helps her feel more refreshed when she gets to school – especially since older students have busier days, going from six class periods a day in middle school to seven in high school.
Most local students, though, were generally unaware of this new law and did not know that their school start time might change in the coming school years – bringing into question how thoroughly each school district communicated with residents regarding the law and its future implications.
Not all school board members support this new law or the proposed time changes. Karen Brill, board chair for the School District of Palm Beach County, emphasized concerns that the community has regarding these changes.
“The parents, the high school students, teachers I spoke to, they want the schedule to remain the same. The later start times for middle and high school students may have sounded great on paper, but…there are a myriad of unintended consequences,” said Brill, calling these changes the hottest topics the board has addressed with the state legislature in years.
Edwin Ferguson, board member for District 7, a school district overseeing West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, said in the meeting that he thinks the law is unnecessary and was not well-thought-out. He and Brill share many of the same concerns: that the law will inhibit students from maintaining after-school jobs – many of which are needed to help their parents make ends meet – or caring for younger siblings while their parents work.
Marcia Andrews, board member for District 6, a school district overseeing Royal Palm Beach, Wellington and the Glades, wants Palm Beach County residents to communicate with Gov. DeSantis, state legislators and the county delegation to push back against the new law and the proposed time changes.
“None [of the options] look good, all of them look bad. It’s gonna be a problem for all of these… districts across the state of Florida,” she said.
While the School District of Palm Beach County survey data still has to be presented to and reviewed by the school board, Burke-Peart said that option one – which has elementary school starting at 7:30 a.m., high school starting at 8:45 a.m. and middle school starting at 10:15 a.m. – seems to have a slight advantage.
“It is important to note,” said Burke-Peart, “that none of these options are approved or recommended by the District at this stage.”
Though the plan for the Palm Beach County School Board was to integrate community input and spend the spring planning to implement one of the new start times for the 2026-27 school year – and have a decision finalized by May 2025 – some lawmakers in Florida are now starting to push back.
With the Florida legislature slated to resume on March 4, the clock is ticking toward the 2026 deadline, and the future of Florida’s school start times hangs in the balance.
This story was produced by MediaLab@FAU, a project of Florida Atlantic University School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, as part of a content sharing partnership with the WLRN newsroom. The reporter can be reached here.