The breaking news of the new semester is Poudre School District’s decision to push back start and release time for many high schoolers and middle schoolers. Next year, Fossil Ridge High School will start around 9:00 a.m. and end around 4:00 p.m. Many are concerned with how the change will affect athletics.

With the current schedule, athletics start right after dismissal. Some sports, such as swimming, have morning practices as well. This can mean that some kids are getting up at 5 a.m. or earlier just to go to practice. Better Help, a website that focuses on education and treatment for mental health problems, recommends that teenagers get eight to ten hours of sleep each night. With homework, chores, and in some cases work, this can become difficult. If you add getting up at 5 a.m. to that list, it is easy to  to realize how hard it is to be energized at school. This is why a lot of people are excited about the time change.

On the other side, however, a lot of students are not thrilled to be having practices starting as late as 5 p.m. Brandon Carlucci, the Fossil athletics director, can see both opinions. “We have lots of coaches that coach here who do not teach in our building. It’s tough for them to get out of work at 3:00 for practice. It will be easier for them to get here at 4 o’clock to start practice. In that aspect, the time change is positive,” Carlucci explained. Carlucci can also see the negative impacts of the time change, adding, “When a team leaves to go to Boulder for a game, it used to be if they left at 1:00 that they’d only miss one class. With the time change, you’re looking at almost 2 full classes where kids aren’t in class.”

There are several pros and there are several cons to the time change and athletics. The big thing, however, is that we just don’t know what will happen until we experience the time change with sports. Carlucci added, “The general consensus is that things are going to change. Beyond that, we don’t really know until we experience it through a full school year.”