It's About Time

One of the really great things about Life In These United States is that when we feel that the government is being unreasonable, or just plain wrong about something, we can entreat our public servants and request redress.

A nice red dress always makes a nice look, but anyway.

The good people of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, home of some 555,743 good citizens (as of 2013) felt that having high school students put down their soggy Eggos and saunter into a classroom to soak up grammar and math by 7:17 AM is much too ask of people who stayed up until 3:17 AM to send each other pictures of their uvulae.  

Breaking news: you could have school open from noon 'til 12:30 and kids still wouldn't want to be there.

But, enough parents raised enough objections to this horrible early start time that the county brass finally was moved to action. 

"This has been a long process for us. We formed a task force in 2014 that looked at this issue that involved community members, parents, and students and folks from across the school system," said Bob Mosier, school district spokesperson.

Two years' work by a fifteen people on a task force led to a vote the other night, and the Anne Arundel County Board of Education voted 6-2 to shift school start and close times for the next school year.

Before I tell you the outcome of all this time and effort, let me tell you that they will have to buy 10 more school buses and spend an additional $618,000, which they folded into the operating budget.  

And here is the payoff:

Instead of high schools starting at 7:17 AM, they will now open at 7:30 AM.

And they will stay open for 13 more minutes in the afternoon.

13 minutes is 780 seconds.  And that's how much more sleep they'll be getting down in Glen Burnie, Arnold, Riva and Shadyside.

13 minutes is not even enough time to listen to the long version of "Do You Feel Like We Do?" but, really, just go on sleeping...