School starting hours

How does your kid do first thing in the morning? Is he an early riser, dressed, organized, ready to go, eager to go to school, on the bus on time?

Yes, Virginia, there are children like this. Three of them, I think. None in McHenry County, Ill. - - - just kidding. There might be three; maybe, even four.

In George Will's syndicated column, carried yesterday in the Northwest Herald, he gave "Advice for parents: Lighten up, stop overparenting."

In the fifth column he wrote, "When Edina, Minn., changed its high school start from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., math/verbal SAT scores rose substantially."

I recall a Letter to the Editor (of The Woodstock Independent, I believe) by a Woodstock mom, after Woodstock School District 200 changed its start times and made them earlier. This wise mom wrote that she agreed that kids could learn more in longer school days but that they would have to be awake first!