Kyle Stokes has an item entitled South Bend Schools Revive Old Indiana Debate: Central Or Eastern Time? pointing to a South Bend Tribune article about a proposed resolution for South Bend Community School Board for it to join the Central Time Coalition.
The coalition, as the name suggests, supports a switch to Central Time for Indiana. This is fall out from the Daylight Saving Time debate from several years ago. Prior to that, most of the state was on Eastern Standard Time, year round. This was the functional equivalent of year round Central Daylight Time. Eastern Daylight Time causes the hours on the clock to roll around earlier in relation to the sun – that’s why, mornings are suddenly dark again when we were given a taste of daylight in the mornings not so long ago.
In terms of schools, the argument goes, this is pernicious because kids internal clocks aren’t set to let them be as productive that close to sunrise. And, in terms of direct, objective dangers, there is concern about kids waiting for buses in the dark. St. Joseph County is an interesting case – they had petitioned to be on Central Time shortly after Troy Woodruff broke his promise and cast the deciding vote in favor of daylight saving time for the state legislature. Despite the promise that counties would be free to pursue their own preferences on the time zone issue with the Department of Transportation; the State intervened in opposition to St. Joseph’s request based on the protests by Elkhart County that St. Joseph’s time zone ought to serve the convenience of Elkhart County. The feds took notice of that and rejected the request of St. Joseph County to move to Central Time.
For my part, I don’t like the idea of Central Standard Time in the middle of the winter, with its 4:30 sunsets; but I also don’t like Eastern Daylight Time in early spring with its dark mornings. Given our geographic location, year round Eastern Standard Time/Central Daylight Time was the best balance of distributing the available daylight between morning and evening.
DST’s morning dark was aggravated when the start time for DST moved from early April to early March. The difference is palpable.
South Bend is making a wise and rational decision that will lead them in the direction of prosperity and the good life. This will also enable them to watch Chicago TV during reasonable hours. This is purely an objective observation, unrelated to the fact that I live in Lake County.
Doug – we met & chatted in Logansport HS during one of the “hearings” held by USDOT. I believe the Indianpolis Star’s Mary Beth Schnieder mentioned my having traveled there from Columbus in her reporting of that meeting. (She certainly briefly talked with me.)
This issue -and particularly dark mornings/late sunrises not conducive to education nor safety of schoolkids- is not so much DST-related, instead the issue is more that we’re in the wrong timezone, a situation that has been in existence since 1961 when the first fiddling around with timezone split the state in half. (The Indy metro region was placed in Eastern, probably to give their broadcasters another hour to sell commercial advertisements before the network’s ‘prime time’ scheduling came on.)
While this http://bit.ly/YVd5bL doesn’t address that history, it is something I produced back in 2006 while the matter was before the legislature. The chart that tracks sunrise times shows quite clearly that dark mornings had long been common here and the DST simply added significantly more such dark mornings. Please note that all of the late sunrise dates occur during the traditional academic year. This is why it should be a matter of interest to local school corporations.
I certainly remember you, Tom! In fact, the link in the post under “rejected the request” mentions your debunking of the Chamber’s study on bus accidents; pointing out it discusses only loading/unloading accidents, not moving accidents and doesn’t discuss student performance.
Since 2006, the negative impact of early school times on student performance has become more clearly shown by the studies. (Recognition of this fact cuts against the Hoosier nature which looks at sleep – particularly in the early morning instead of the evening – as nothing more complicated than plain laziness.)
Here’s a map showing what was done in 1961 — note the “bump-out” around Indy, just about as far as the broadcast signal reaches. http://bit.ly/Zrr7jA
On Feb. 13 at 7:05 a.m. (Eastern Time), eight-year-old Jared Philbeck was hit by a car while crossing busy US Highway 27 in Union County. He died the following afternoon, which was Valentine’s Day. On Central Time, it would have been daylight at 7:05 a.m, and this tragedy could possibly have been prevented. In October of 2011, a New Castle boy was killed by his own teacher while walking to school in pitch-black darkness. Many such accidents have occurred since Indiana was moved to Eastern Time, but their regularity has increased substantially since our return to DST seven years ago. What kind of society are we that we allow our youngest and most vulnerable population to cross busy streets in the dark? We would never allow our grandparents to do so, yet we place our children in harm’s way throughout most of the school year.
Some school districts have attempted to remedy this problem by pushing back the beginning of the school day until 8:30 or 9. While this sounds great on paper, many parents simply must be at work by 8. The only logical solution to this problem is for Indiana to return to the Central Time Zone. This simple step would squeeze the typical 7.5-hour school day into the available nine hours of winter sunlight. Students would no longer be forced to wait for buses or walk to school in the pitch-black darkness of our misplacement in the Eastern Time Zone. Parents would no longer be forced to try to put young ones to bed during our abnormally light spring evenings.
The observance of Eastern Time is also detrimental to our businesses. In 2012, Zimmer Industries, Warsaw’s largest employer, moved its distribution center (and 350 Hoosier jobs) to Tennessee because their CEO was tired of waiting for Indiana to move to the Central Time Zone. Zimmer needs its distribution center in the Central Time Zone to “better serve their West Coast customers.” Lord knows how many other companies have moved out of state (or chosen not to move to Indiana at all) because of our incorrect time zone situation. We’re supposed to be a “logistics hub.” Let’s correct our time zone so we can be!
As one who is from the Indy metro area, if we move to Central time, many tourist based Indiana businesses and communities will lose my money. I will no longer be taking weekend trips to places like Parke County, Brown County, Metamora, etc. during the late fall and winter. During those trips, I want sunlight as late as possible. Sounds like me and my spending money will be taken to E. KY, Michigan, or Ohio. For me, this would mean more bang for my buck, with the sun setting later in the day vs. earlier.
You make good points, Tom. Central time would shave lots of daylight activities time off, considering the fact that most people would use a clock based schedule.
Dog,
I agree with you completely. I lived in LaPorte County for a year. The 4:30 sunsets were very depressing.
My vote is to stay on EST and stop tweaking the clocks.
This issue is another one created by the current President of
Purdue Univ.., and then crammed through the legislature.
Although he views himself as the modern day Leonardo Da Vinci, now he can only ruin Purdue with his policy theories.
Just wanted to point out that this week because of extended DST, we have the “latest” sunrises of the year. Today’s sunrise was at 8:09 a.m. EDT, on Friday it will be at 8:14 a.m. EDT, and on Saturday, the day before we “fall back,” it will be at 8:15 a.m. EDT. The latest sunrises on standard time occur from December 30, 2013 through January 9, 2014 at 8:06 a.m. EST. On March 9, 2014, the day we “spring forward” again, sunrise will be at 8:06 a.m. EDT, which brings many more dark mornings. I also agree, however, that the 4:20 p.m. sunsets on Central Time would be depressing. (They would occur from December 2 – 12, 2013.) This brings us back to Eastern Standard Time year round, which was the best balance for both mornings and evenings. If not that, then at least a shortening of the time period which we observe EDT, which would reduce the amount of dark mornings we have in early fall, late winter, and early Spring, but that would have to be done on the national level. The extension of DST several years ago was pretty pointless.