There are many advocates to starting school later. Jeff Steward feels strongly against the idea and writes a con-letter to the Fairfax Times.

Next school year, our school system will endure $98 million in cuts. We will lose 720 staff members. Class sizes will grow and our children will suffer. Two objective start time studies have been performed in the past at great expense. Both studies concluded that this change would not be right for Fairfax County. This board chose to disregard the past studies and instead spent money we don’t have and hired The Children’s National Medical Center. They did not ask CNMC to determine whether this was a right for Fairfax County. They instead told them to figure out how to make it happen. Curiously, Dr. Judith Owens of the CNMC recently said “delaying start times does not guarantee that students will get more sleep.” Really?