More Than Just Extra Sleep: Do Two-Hour Delays Disrupt Education By: Daniella Andreacci Fewer hours in class, are adding up to bigger problems within our schools

Two-hour delays are changes in a schedule where the start of the school day is pushed back by two hours, typically due to weather conditions such as snow or ice, road concerns, or other emergencies. In most cases, instead of canceling school entirely, school districts use two-hour delays to allow buses and families to travel more safely, even though the school day is shorter and class time is reduced. You may find yourself asking how shortened school days disrupt learning and routines. Although some students and faculty might enjoy those extra hours of sleep, those extra hours of sleep are disrupting education in more ways than one.

I decided to sit down with Ryan Orlando, who is a student at BHS and has experienced many two-hour delays throughout his life. For many students like Ryan, his education is a very important part of who he is as a person, and the disruption to his school day has affected him positively and negatively on an academic level. When I sat down with Ryan for our interview, I learned about how two-hour delays affect his mood, focus, and performance. “Honestly, I feel more focused on two-hour delay days because I get more sleep and I’m able to eat a more filling breakfast, which makes my overall mood happier. With two extra hours of sleep, I just come prepared and have so much focus on important things in my everyday life.” He goes on to talk about how he believes having two hour delays once a while could help improve student focus and overall academic performance. He tells me, although two hour delays can be frustrating for parents, teachers, and students, it is the perfect amount of time for teachers to teach a lesson without students losing interest.

Ryan is reading a book to keep up on his latest assignments that have been assigned due to the two-hour delay schedule.

Ryan feels that two hour delays make it easier to come to school prepared and that they can help students' education. “Two-hour delays make it so much easier to come to school prepared because, as I have stated before, I get to sleep in and still have at least 4o minutes to just relax, unlike during a normal school morning where I am rushed. I also think two- hour delays help our education, because they force teachers into a smaller time frame, so they end up compacting lessons more. They end up cutting a lot of busy work, and I think that it's really good for actually making it more efficient”. As we continued to talk, I asked Ryan how he thinks two delays affect students’ education in the long run. “We all love two-hour delays; it is fun to be able to go to school later and have shorter classes, but I do believe that two-hour delays can be negative to our education. We had three two-hour delays in one week, which cut down each class by 25%, which might not seem like a lot, but can lead to less productive class time in the long run.”

As we were wrapping up our interview, I asked Ryan how he believes two-hour delays can affect teachers and administrators from a student perspective. “ From what I've seen, a lot of teachers either feel unfazed or happy, but some of them are upset and frustrated that they couldn't get their lesson planned in, or a quiz or test. Most of the time they seem pretty relaxed, like they normally are during regular class days, because they themselves, they get to sleep in more and they get more time to themselves, so I feel like everyone benefits, but sometimes not all the teachers share that viewpoint of two-hour delays being good or beneficial.”

Hearing a student share firsthand his opinion on two-hour delays helps spark questions about whether two-hour delays are beneficial or disruptive to students' education. The question remains, will schools continue to have two-hour delays during the cold months and risk disruptions to education, or will schools get rid of two-hour delays altogether to save precious school time? Only time will tell.