How Many Casualties Do We Need Before We Consider Student Health and Safety?

After a heartfelt testimony from over 12 Maryland residents on HB 1462 last week, the bill has yet to reach a vote after being assigned by the Ways & Means Committee to the Education Subcommittee. The bill seeks to start a task force to examine school start times.

Perhaps they can issue a recommendation to the Maryland Board of Education and ask them to consider altering when schools start? However, after 15 years of discussion on the issue of school start times with local school boards, we know this issue is beyond the scope of local school boards.

Meanwhile, students are dying trying to get to school.  I wish I was joking, but I'm not:

In October 2012, a 16-year old student was killed when attempting to walk in pre-dawn, overcast conditions to her high school in Germantown, MD.

In December 2012, a student attempting to get to school in Laurel, MD during predawn hours was killed.  This marks the third student pedestrian fatality at Fort Meade High School in Anne Arundel County, MD. in the school year. 

In March 2013, a student was struck and injured by a vehicle while walking to school in the early morning in Watkins Mill, MD.  A 55-year old man by a school bus traveling on a busy intersection at 6:30am only a week later.

Are school start times the only factor in all of these tragedies?  Probably not.  But why should we create better odds for these kinds of accidents?  There is also concrete evidence that later school start times reduce teen crashes.  In Fayette County, Kentucky, teen driver crash rates were reduced by 16.5% in 2 years after school start times were delayed by one hour.  Meanwhile, the rest of the state saw an increase in teen crash rates during that same time period.

HB 1462 is a low cost way to bring all the stakeholders together to support our educators to solve a complex problem that must be fixed.  This is beyond a simple education issue.  It is a matter of public health and safety.  The bill does not legislate start times or mandate change.  It is the beginning of bringing all of our community stakeholders together to correct longstanding sleep deprivation and safety issues our students have endured for three generations.

Please call Speaker Busch, Ways & Means Chair Sheila Hixson and Education Subcommittee Chair Anne Kaiser TODAY.  Ask them to get HB 1462 voted on by Ways & Means and the entire House of Delegates BEFORE Monday, 3/25/13.

If HB 1462 does not get voted on and crossed over to the Senate by Monday, we will be back at ground zero with no legislation and no task force to develop healthy and safe school start times throughout Maryland. 

MICHAEL ERIN BUSCH
Speaker of House of Delegates
(410) 841-3800, (301) 858-3800
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3800 (toll free)
e-mail: michael.busch@house.state.md.us
fax: (410) 841-3880, (301) 858-3880

ANNE R. KAISER
Education Subcommittee Chair
(410) 841-3036, (301) 858-3036
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3036 (toll free)
e-mail: anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us
fax: (410) 841-3060, (301) 858-3060

SHEILA ELLIS HIXSON
Ways & Means Committee Chair
(410) 841-3469, (301) 858-3469
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3469 (toll free)
e-mail: sheila.hixson.annapolis@house.state.md.us (constituent services)
fax: (410) 841-3777, (301) 858-3777

Unless we get all of our community stakeholders to sit down and talk to each other, as HB 1462 proposes, another generation of kids is going to suffer with dangerous and unhealthy school start times.  Please let our House Delegates know that now!

Thank you!

Maribel C. Ibrahim
Co-Founder,
Start School Later, Inc.

Visit: Our Website | Our National Petition | Our MD Campaign | Track HB1462