Typically my mornings include oversleeping, rushing to do everything I didn’t do the night before, and sprinting to catch the bus. This is, of course, all my fault: I don’t like going to bed earlier than 10:30 pm, and yet I really need at least eight and a half hours of sleep to function. I often find myself thinking about how much easier it would be if I even had an extra half hour in the morning.

Luckily for me — and everyone else who shares my early-morning pain — next year Garfield will most likely join the ranks of schools like Ballard and Nathan Hale and implement a later start time. Much of this has to do with the fact that school buses will stop running in the 2008 – 2009 school year, meaning students will have to either find a ride or take Metro to school.

As the softball coach and health teacher, a later start time wouldn’t really affect Ms. Hahn; practice would only end 30 minutes later and, as a teacher, she has to be here early anyway. Still, she’s all for a later start time. “I think the late start [would be] good because as people, we really aren’t trained to get up that early,” she says. Her only worry is that school and activities ending later will prevent working students from getting to their jobs on time.

This is a valid concern, considering the results of the student survey conducted by ASB. A majority of students indicated that a later start time would interfere with their activities at least “somewhat.” Jobs and babysitting make up a significant portion of such activities.

Overall, the survey indicated more people would prefer keeping the start time the same. Yet this option was closely followed by people wanting to start an hour later. The results, however, may be questionable; many surveys — especially by those in favor of later start times — appeared to be filled out by the same people.

The surveys also included a section for comments. These ranged from pro-late start (“Please change the start time!!! J”) to anti-late start (“Late start will ruin my life, no lie”); from the eloquent (“This change is absolutely necessary to the mentality, functionality, and general well being of me and my peers. More sleep means more leaning!”) to the short and sweet (“NO LATE START!”). So all in all the survey showed… not a whole lot.