This amuses me; where I went to highschool the first period bell rang at 7:25 A.M. Yes, it was terrible. I'm not sure we need to start as late as noon, but before 8:00 is definitely way to early.crayzz wrote:While we're at it, make school begin and end later in the evening. I don't have the source on hand (I'll look for it later when I have the time), but teenagers tend to stay up later, partly because of their hormones. This places them at a pointless disadvantage when school begins at 8:30 in the morning. Schools with later start times (like a 12-7:30pm schedule) tend to have better students, simply because the students sleep better on average.
Also, regarding absences and "butts in seats", the school had a rule that you could miss class up to 7 times in a quarter before you failed automatically. We had a rotating schedule which meant each class was first 1 day a week. So with 6-7 weeks in each quarter, you could (theoretically) miss first period every day without an issue. Of course the kids who did this where usually the ones who didn't care about their schoolwork anyway, and failed for numerous reasons.