Gabrielle Russon
Lawmakers are rolling back a new law requiring later middle and high school start times and conceding it’s best to let local school officials decide what time school should start.
The Legislature passed SB 296 Tuesday to repeal a 2023 law requiring middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools not before 8:30 a.m. At the time, lawmakers passed the law because they worried teenagers weren’t getting enough sleep. Rep. Anne Gerwig, the Wellington Republican who sponsored the House bill, called it “a well-intentioned law backed by research.”
The Senate passed SB 296 with a 38-0 vote in March before Tuesday’s unanimous House vote, at 116-0.
Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis said Tuesday school officials raised concerns but were ignored during the Legislative process when the original bill was advancing.
“I would just hope that this would be a lesson to this body,” said Davis, an Ocoee Democrat. “So many of us, especially from the back rows, yelled to the rooftops about the unintended consequences … Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears. So here we are repealing a bill that we just enacted last year. I hate to say it, but we told you so.”
The new law would not have taken effect until 2026, but local school officials warned the change was creating logistical nightmares for larger school districts and some rural ones.
Elementary school students could be waiting outside even earlier in the dark for their buses. School districts, already facing a bus driver shortage, would have needed to hire even more drivers. Working parents also weren’t pleased with the new schedule. It also could have caused scheduling challenges for teenagers who dual enroll at local colleges.
Under SB 296, the mandated later start times will not be enforced, but lawmakers want school districts to report back about considerations for deciding school start times.
The school districts will be required to report on the start times, the community engagement process and the financial impacts about delayed start times. Once the district submits that document in writing, then they are considered in compliance with the 2023 law, no matter when school begins.
The average Florida high school starts at 7:45 a.m., according to Senate staff analysis.
“Forty-six percent of high schools start before 7:30 a.m., and 19 percent of high schools start between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m,” the analysis said. “For Florida middle schools, the average start time is 9:03 a.m., with only eight percent of schools starting prior to 8:00 a.m.”
Even the original sponsor of the 2023 bill was in favor of overturning it.
“Without more resources, without maybe even more time to figure out how we actually implement this in real time, with bus driver shortages and the like, we are possibly walking into a minefield that we shouldn’t venture into,” said Sen. Danny Burgess, a Zephyrhills Republican, during last month’s committee debate. “It was one heck of a pain in the butt that bill was. And so this makes me wonder what it was really all for.”
The bill heads next to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his consideration and signature.
