High schools starting at 8:30 a.m.? Florida legislators may kill that plan before it kicks in

Sun Sentinel | By Leslie Postal | March 4, 2025

Starting Florida’s public high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m. may be a plan that gets scrapped before it is ever implemented.

Two years ago, Florida approved the start time rule to begin in the 2026-27 school year, setting up a major shift for the state’s public high schools, which on average ring the first bell at 7:45 a.m. and even earlier on most Central Florida campuses.

But now the Florida Legislature has plans to reverse the law it enacted two years ago. A Senate education committee approved deleting the 2023 rule in a 6-to-1 vote Monday afternoon.

The earlier law made sense, given numerous studies have shown students do better when high schools don’t start classes as early as they do in Florida, several senators said.

But it ran into “practical realities,” mostly that it would be “cost prohibitive,” said Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Clay County Republican who is sponsoring this year’s law.

Most districts use the same buses for all their students, staggering start times for their elementary, middle and high schools. If they pushed back high school start times, they’d have to buy many more school buses, an expensive proposition. Or they would have to start elementary schools earlier, in the current high school time slot, and that could mean young students waiting at bus stops “at 6 a.m. in the dark,” Bradley said.

“The feedback is overwhelming,” she added, noting that most school administrators opposed the shift.

Numerous school officials, including those from Orange and Seminole counties, filled out cards at Monday’s meeting indicating they approved of the new law (SB 296) that would axe the mandate for later high school start times.

“I did vote for the bill when it came through, and I do love the idea of having later start times for our older students,” said Sen. Lori Berman, D- Boynton Beach.

But members of the Palm Beach County School Board told her “it was just impossible for them to be able to meet this mandate,” she said.  “I wish we could figure out a way to make it work.”

As soon as the 2023 law passed, school district leaders said they worried they could not afford the switch the state wanted, even as they acknowledged the benefits.

Researchers in Minnesota and Washington, among others, determined that pushing back high school start times to about 8:30 a.m. meant teenagers slept more, had better grades, test scores and attendance rates and got into fewer morning car crashes.

“The science is very clear,” said Rep. John Temple, R-Wildwood, the 2023 bill’s sponsor, as it was discussed in a legislative committee that spring.

Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, who sponsored a Senate version two years ago, on Monday said, “I 100% believe in the science, as we all do.”

But even with a “three-year glide path” school districts could not make it work. “I think we’ve heard the feedback.”

The state provides only about half of a school district’s transportation funding, leaving the district to come up with the rest.

In 2023, the Osceola County school district estimated that to start high schools later but leave elementary school schedules alone would mean buying 150 more buses and hiring that many more drivers. The cost for the buses alone would be about $22 million and finding the drivers would be challenging, officials said, as there is a statewide shortage that continues now.

The only senator to vote against the bill was Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, though he did not share his reason.