Audience members jeered Lower Merion School District Superintendent Khalid Mumin on Monday night (June 13), as he tried to justify his optimism to School Board member Kim Garrison. Playing “Devil’s Advocate,” Garrison asked Mumin, “What’s the answer if it doesn’t happen like that.” She was referring to Mumin’s expressed belief that Lower Merion School District would eventually get the go-ahead to construct permanent lights at Arnold Field (Lower Meron High School) – and that would enable later school start times.
A 7th-Grader at Bala Cynwyd Middle School named Ace, argued persuasively in favor of later school start times.
Ace noted when he goes to high school, he’ll have to wake up at 5:35 A.M. “And if you run those numbers, along with by bedtime, which on a good outcome will move to at least 11:00 in high school, the comparison looks like this – currently I get about eight hours of sleep, which is 30 minutes less than the suggested average for adolescents. However, in the future, I’ll only be getting six hours and thirty-five minutes of sleep,” he said.
“Furthermore,” Ace added, if you take one hour less and multiply it by 180 days of school … you’ll find that the average student will lose about seven and a half days’ worth of sleep over one year. Over all of high school, that’s more than a month.”
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I think Mumin handled that well…and I am a skeptic.