The 2022–23 academic year marked the first year later school start times were mandated for all of California’s middle and high schools (with the exception of rural schools). This mandate was signed into law in 2019 through Senate Bill 328 in response to scientific research that shows that later start times better align with the circadian rhythms of teenage students and, therefore, produce a host of benefits.
While the legislation was well intended, a blanket statewide policy raised concerns from educational partners who pointed out that the diverse circumstances of the state’s local educational agencies would make universal implementation challenging and that there were few flexibilities allowed for a district’s local control or decision-making.
“The Legislature often enacts educational mandates intended to benefit California’s students but frequently neglects local implementation or evaluation,” said CSBA Principal Research Manager Jeremy Anderson. “Without adequate funding, tools and guidance, these mandates risk negative and inequitable outcomes. While some LEAs strive to comply without state support, they are already burdened by other state requirements. This issue was evident with the late start law, which is why CSBA continues to actively research unfunded mandates.”
The passage of the law was not accompanied by plans or funding for formal evaluation of implementation. To address questions about the impact on LEAs and to provide policymakers with data about a major system change to schools, the CSBA Research and Education Policy Development (REPD) Department launched a yearlong study to understand the impact of later school start times within and across districts.
The results of this study are published in the new report Waking up to reality: The unintended consequences of mandated later school start times on California, which presents the findings from four focus groups, five in-depth interviews with leaders from different LEAs, and statewide survey responses from 325 school leaders in 219 unified and high school districts, as well as 137 elementary district responses.
- An increase in missed instructional time and other extracurricular impacts: The most concerning finding was that many students who participate in extracurricular activities and sports are missing afternoon classes at a greater rate than before the mandate. The constraints that limit the ability of many districts to adjust extracurricular schedules are resulting in students’ early dismissal, forcing them to make up work and miss direct classroom instruction.
- Transportation and lighting challenges: Later school start times presented school districts with challenges coordinating bus routes, especially with their elementary schools or neighboring districts. These effects spilled over into afternoon operations where buses for school-to-home transportation and extracurriculars are in demand. In addition to transportation, lighting concerns for extracurriculars and before-school safety were common responses in the survey.
- Concerns around staffing: Participants in this study reported additional needs for staffing, mainly before school, when students from working families had to drop them off before the later start time. Students arriving at school at earlier times could interfere with the purpose of the legislation as it mitigates the ability of students to align their sleep cycles.
- Inequitable effects on students and families: This theme captured a range of inequitable impacts to members of district communities directly related to later school start times, many of whom come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These include the increased need for child care, impacts on students’ ability to work after school, and unequal access to before- and after-school curricular options created due to later school start times.
- When asked which groups are most impacted, 40 percent of board presidents mentioned working families struggling with child supervision. Thirty-two percent said that student-athletes and those participating in extracurricular activities were most affected.
- Opportunities presented by the change in school start times: Some school leaders took the change in school start times as an opportunity to reimagine master schedules. They found creative ways to alleviate traffic patterns and offer staff more flexibility in meeting and instructional times.
- Allow for more flexibility and local control on school start times. While SB 328 contains an exemption for rural school districts (without defining what constitutes a rural school district), it provides no guidance or resources to help with implementation. California school districts have wide ranges of geographic, socioeconomic and demographic realities that affect local policy implementation.
- Increase funding for transportation and lighting. Results of the study showed LEAs required additional buses and drivers, both of which are in high demand but low supply. Others explained how the lack of lighting has complicated extracurricular schedules and morning drop off.
- Investigate the impact and cost of unfunded mandates in California. Unfunded mandates like SB 328 place additional burdens on California LEAs. According to the California State Controller, the amount of insufficient appropriations for education reimbursement claims filed for state-mandated programs was listed at $840 million.
- Require legislation that proposes large system changes to local education systems to include an automatic impact analysis to be conducted by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office three to five years after enactment. Mandates continually stacked onto LEAs without evaluation or resources can potentially harm operations, district communities and students by diverting existing resources away from educational programming.
- Optional local recommendation for LEAs: To provide more evidence for missed instructional time, LEAs could collect instructional minutes data to provide the state the true local impact on student learning.