This school year a change was made to the ODA schedule. Instead of starting school at 8:00, the administration decided to roll back the start time to 8:30. The change was made because some research suggests that a later starting time is good for the teenage brain.  But there have been mixed feelings about the change.

This Monday morning during assembly, Mr. Mahler, ODA’s Head of School, asked students to reflect on the change and show by raising hands if they wanted it to return to the way it was before.

There were mixed responses, so the ODA Bolt did some investigating. One hundred people were asked their opinions via Survey Monkey. The survey was posted on the ODA student Facebook page.

Here are the results:
51% said keep the new times of 8:30-3:30.
37% said they’d like to return to the way it was of 8:00-9:00
12% said they really had no preference, “I don’t care.”

Those who voted in favor of the 8:30 start time argued that they had more time in the morning to sleep and activate their mind, while those who opted for the 8:00 start time believed that a thirty minute difference had no effect on wakefulness, but they had more time after school to attend sports or finish homework.

So, what’s the conclusion? Based on these numbers the amount of people who would like to keep the times as they are, lead over the people who would like to change the times back to last year’s schedule. Many students agreed that the time change was a nice idea, but they believe that there would have to be a more dramatic change for it to make a difference.