This year FCPS decided to change the bell schedule for high school students in the county. This change was made based off the consideration that students were not getting enough sleep and it may be affecting their studies and health.

Pushing the school’s start time forward an hour had been what the county thought would solve this issue. Did it really or did it just bring upon a whole set of new problems?

High schools share their school buses with the middle schools in the county. Before picking up the high school students from their stops, the buses would have just finished sending the middle school students off to their classes.

With the chosen start time for school now being 8:10 a.m., morning traffic makes it near impossible for the buses to reach Annandale before the late bell rings for first period.

According to safety and security administrator Chris Tippins, 4-12 buses have arrived late in the past 2-3 weeks, but the solution is not up to the school, rather it is up to the transportation department to fix the problem.

Arriving to school at least 10 minutes late and still needing to head to their lockers makes students nearly 10 to 15 minutes late to the beginning of class. This is the time in which they miss a whole lot of information and directions given from the teacher.

“I was very aggravated,” sophomore Hidaya Hussen said. “I missed 30 minutes of discussion and I didn’t like being behind.”

Teachers were notified to accept the late students coming in, but understandingly, the students who are bus riders will not make them stop class and wait for them.

The new schedule made the mornings a stressful time for students when it should be the opposite. With the old schedule, students who ride the bus arrived to school early with some minutes left to relax and gather their materials in peace.

Because school starts later, they dismiss later as well. High school students used to leave school at 2:10 p.m. With the new schedule, students are being dismissed at a later time at 2:55 p.m.

This cannot be good news to the students who stay after school to participate in sports and extracurricular activities, which is most of them. Where is the time for homework?

With practice not finishing until 7:00 p.m., and still needing to shower and eat when they arrive at home, students continue to have to stay up until midnight and after doing homework leaving us right where we started- they are still not getting enough sleep.

The original schedule was said to be giving students less sleep. When the new one was put into place this year, the middle schools in the county had to be given the old one. It does not make sense to give the younger students a change in routine that gives them less sleep when this routine benefits high schoolers more.

Fairfax county should return to last year’s schedule. It fits much better with traffic and gives extra time to finish work at home- time every student desperately needs.