Niles North recently introduced a new free breakfast program in the mornings for students and faculty. In order to bring more attention to this, the administration decided to start bus routes at 7:15 a.m. – ten minutes earlier than before.
The free breakfast program is a great way for students to get their most important meal of the day, especially if they tend to not have time in the mornings before school. However I think that there is really no need for the bus schedule to get altered. Most morning buses arrived at Niles North around 7:45 before the change. That would still leave students with twenty minutes to eat and enjoy their free breakfast if they so desired.
Senior Darby Aanerud had an interesting day due to the new bus schedule. Her bus actually never arrived and she had no one to drive her to school, therefore had to miss the day. “It was just really annoying because my bus never came and then I had to miss a day of school,” she said.
Although the new bus schedule is not in any way supposed to be looked at as some sort of “punishment,” many students are taking it as negatively as that. We’re students who have long days ahead of ourselves – it may not seem like a lot, but those extra ten minutes of sleep are as precious as gold to us.
Students of all ages seem to be having issues with this new adjustment. Freshman Lexi Brander, said “I don’t like it because as someone who doesn’t go to the free breakfast, I have way too much extra time between when I get to school and when school starts.”
There is an over-arching debate about whether school starts too early as it is, and pushing the bus schedule back just cuts into students’ precious “sleepy time.”
Although the free breakfast program is a great idea and a great new addition to the school, there is no need for a new bus schedule as well. We don’t blame you Niles North – it’s a good idea, we just want our sleep.