It has been a month now since we changed the start time back to 7:30 and we have had a lot of different reactions. Students are now waking up hours earlier than before and teachers have to leave their houses way earlier to make it on time to school. For some students, this change has positively affected their daily life and for others, it didn’t at all. I got the opportunity to speak to some students, parents, teachers, and the dean of students. I interviewed Jack Gerardi, Lisa Goodchild, Mrs. Slason, and Mr. Anastasia. I asked them all a different set of questions to see how switching back to the 7:30 time change affected them. 

Jack Gerardi claims that the 7:30 start time has made traffic much worse and did not improve the traffic problem that has been occurring since the first day of school.  He said he has to wake up at 6:30 every morning to make it to school on time. Although Jack does not like the traffic, he does not want to go back to 8:30 because he likes to get out early. He did in fact vote for the 7:30 time change and wants to keep it that way. 

Mrs. Slason has to travel a very far distance to get to Norwalk High from Beacon Falls. You have to go past several towns such as Westport, Southport, Bridgeport, Trumbull, Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, and Seymour until you arrive at Beacon Falls. Without traffic, she can get here in 40 minutes. With traffic, it will take her over an hour to get here. The latest she can leave is 6 am. Mrs.Slason has had a real problem with her students showing up to class late since the 7:30 time change. Mrs.Slason said a lot of her students take the bus and she compared it to a “ dumpster fire”. 

On the other hand, Mr. Anastasia argues that the attendance has gotten better since the time change due to buses being more reliable at an earlier time. Mr. A was always in favor of changing back to the original time and never wanted the change to 8:30 in the first place.. Mr. Anastasia said that if the time change never switched, he would still be coaching. Due to his love for coaching, he has mixed feelings about the 7:30 start time. So his overall opinion is generalized to in the middle.

Lisa Goodchild said that the start time has negatively affected her life. She told me that she has not been able to get used to this change because they did it so quickly. Lisa did in fact vote to change back to 7:30 but didn’t realize that it would be like how it is. Lisa claims that traffic is just as bad as before so honestly the time change didn’t do much. She does enjoy getting out earlier, just waking up earlier is hard to get used to.