More on Research vs. Experience

Last year, the school day went from 7:45-2:35. It had been that way for four years.

The Operators read some research that says that adolescents learn more later on in the day. They also saw many of our children coming to school around 9 or 9:30. Without consulting us (not that they have to, but maybe they should), they changed the school day to 9-4.
Here's something they didn't research: Our first year, those were the school hours.

And here's what happened that first year:
-4pm is the same time the elementary school that is attached us let's out, and our kids would try to bully the younger kids and get into fights with the 5th graders.
-The high school down the road is let out around 3:15 or 3:30, and by 4pm, they are walking through our parking lot and down our street. The kids who aren't busy bullying and fighting the elementary kids are busy being bullied or fighting the high school kids.
-It gets dark incredibly early in the winter (duh.) Our neighborhood is INCREDIBLY unsafe. Many of our students walk home, but just walking to the bus stop is still dangerous. So, you can't have any after-school activities or hold any type of detention for fear that the children will leave too late and be MURDERED.
-The kids who come to school late? The vast majority of them aren't doing it because they have too much to do in the morning or because they just cannot get up at 7am, it's because they don't want to be on time for school! Now they'll come at 10:30 or 11.

A lot of the staff is super pissed. I get to sleep later in the morning, so I'm not that bent out of shape. It's just another thing in the long list of ways they don't believe we have anything significant to contribute to their precious research.