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Comment by seanalltogether | Hacker News Reader

I live in Ireland too, and I would hate permanent DST in the winter. I have to get my kids to school in the morning and the sun is just barely rising in the winter months by the time I drop them off. If I had to wake them and drop them to school in the pitch black I would lose my mind.

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By the time it's winter it's dark in the morning regardless of DST. Still can be a pain in Autumn I'm sure, the cold wet mornings for me are tough regardless.

The age old morning people versus evening people. Sounds like the kids aren't morning people either.

It is dark, but it is starting to get light. If it isn't even going to start getting light for another hour after you leave the house you might as well be getting up in the middle of the night. It would be horrible.

This is the existing graph for Dublin. Sadly it already feels like that to me waking up in winter regardless. You can see the Twilight phase is much less prominent in the mornings.

https://cdn.worlddata.info/graphs/sunshine/ireland-m2.png

https://www.worlddata.info/europe/ireland/sunset.php

Young kids are often morning people, but teenagers biologically have something going on that makes them almost universally not morning people. Forcing teenagers to go to school in the dark for several months of the year can make it very difficult for them to get to school, and leave them half asleep during school. This will have an impact on their grades, which can have a follow-on impact on their whole life.

We should probably start high school later in the morning even if we stay on standard time ; it's way more important if we switch to permanent daylight time.

What makes no sense to me, is that secondary school starts earlier than primary school? Or am I out of touch.

> What makes no sense to me, is that secondary school starts earlier than primary school?

It starts earlier so it can end earlier so that there is time for sports and other extra-curricular activities?

Teachers spend time with students doing these activities, and the teachers have lives too. If high school ends at (e.g.) 2:30 pm, there's 60-90 minutes that stuff can happen and teachers still have 'regular work hours' of 8-4 (a shifted 9-5) so they can do things in their lives.

Doing the activities before school makes a lot more sense. It adds another selection filter, the exercise wakes up the students and calms them, and it gets rid of the excuse for starting school so early.

Activities also can stop during the really dark weeks around the solstice in a way school can't.

> Doing the activities before school makes a lot more sense.

Don't necessarily disagree, just laying out a (possible) reason for early start/early finish.

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