Get a Grip, People

More and more, as I even just hear about things going on in town politics, I think to myself, "Don't you people have something better to do?"

This school start time thing is getting ugly. There's a group of parents who want to recall the school committee members who voted in favor of it and call a special town meeting to rescind the change. I note that all of them have very young kids who have yet to exit the K-2 school, and are freaked out about having to get their darlings to the bus early in the grades 3-5 years. Seems like those of us with older kids who have fought the getting the adolescent out of bed before dawn battle are fine with the change - I'll take 3 years of getting 8-11 year old up early than 7 years of battling my 11-18 year old to get up any day. This group is throwing their support wholly behind this one school committee member up for reelection who voted against it; man, are they going to have a rude awakening when this guy increases the class sizes down to the K level (something he long said he wants to do) - typically a topic near and dear to the parents of young elementary students.

This town is so standardized test-happy, and research shows increases in standardized test scores with this kind of change, so they should be jumping for joy.

Some people have far too much time on their hands.