ASHBURN, Va. — Some Loudoun County Public Schools students will start their day up to 45 minutes earlier next school year. Many of their parents are not happy about it.
The district announced in January that 28 elementary schools would change their start time to 7:30 a.m. for the 2022-2023 school year -- 20 minutes earlier for most students.
About 30 other elementary schools will start later, at 8 a.m.
Some middle and high schools will also see changes in their bell schedules, according to the district.
“I think it's a horrible idea," parent Adam Robusto said. "I think that this decision is based in a bureaucratic fiction and not in the lived reality of Loudoun County parents.”
Robusto has a first and fifth grader in the Loudoun County Public School system.
He's frustrated, because he said the district did not consult with families before announcing the adjustments.
“Schools already started very early," he said. "I wake my kid up at 6:20 in the morning. This is going to have me waking my daughter up at 6 a.m."
WUSA 9 asked LCPS for a statement about the changes, and a spokesperson pointed the team to the January announcement.
It lists the reasons as: increasing reliability and safety of transporting students and on-time arrival, ensuring students receive the maximum classroom instruction, and addressing the continued bus driver shortage by cutting the number of second runs to schools.
“Moving this up by 20 minutes, it seems like a minor amount of time. But we're already I think at a hard limit of how early these things can be frankly," Robusto said.
He went on to say he understands the studies that say younger kids have an easier time waking up in the morning than older kids, but he's worried about evening activities interfering with sleep.
"The problem is our lives in the evenings are busy and complex. People often don't even get home until 6:30 in the afternoon," he said. "How are you supposed to be able to do your evening routine with your kids, feed them dinner after activities, and then manage to get them up that early in the morning?”
Robusto started a petition to get the school board and district to reconsider, and it has racked up more than 1,800 signatures so far.
“Every issue that gets taken up in Loudoun County blows up into this big deal… And as a consequence, the signal is getting buried. And I think that's the real problem," Robusto said. "But I think that the first step is that the board needs to take accountability for this and really put pressure on the administration."
Robusto is also concerned about crossing guards, which LCPS said they will coordinate with the sheriff's department to accommodate changes.
If neighbors want another crossing guard at a certain location, it's up to them to request one from police, a spokesperson said.
He believes that more parents will now drive their kids to school next school year, which could increase congestion.