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by jumpingmice 2437 days ago
I don’t get how this is supposed to work with sports and other activities. In high school I had water polo/swimming practice mornings at 6:15. Is that now illegal?
4 comments

I suspect the start time is meant only for classes, not extra-curriculars.
Nobody ever thinks about the edge cases
Yes they do. Under this law, extracurricular and voluntary "early bird" classes are still allowed before 8am.
Typically they don't until they are forced to by an adversarial process. Compare AB5 in its original form versus what was eventually passed. The number of professional groups that stepped in and pushed for exceptions for their trade is a testament to how poorly the original authors of AB5 did thinking about the edge cases. By the time it passed, it was largely exceptions.
So the legislative process worked, cool.
Usually very late for many people by that point.
It should be. There's a lot of research showing that kids need 8+ hours of sleep even more than adults.
Why can't you get 8+ hours of sleep if you have practice at 6:15?
Let’s say you can sleep until 5, which is somewhat optimistic for many families with multiple responsibilities in the morning.

That means you have to be asleep no later than 9, which means depending on the time of year it may still be light out, and certainly the community is still fairly active. Plus I recall a recent study that essentially said teenagers are naturally night owls.

Expecting teenagers to be asleep by 9 is a losing battle.

Because it is tough for high school students to fall asleep early enough.

"In the teenage years, the hormonal response to the 24-hour daily light/dark exposure that influences circadian rhythm is altered, making adolescents physiologically yearn to stay awake later at night and to remain asleep later in the day."

https://www.neurologytimes.com/blog/teenage-circadian-rhythm

How many people did you know in school that went to bed at 10pm? I don't think I knew any.
I just slept through third period every day.
Since it doesn't apply to "zero-period" classes, it probably doesn't apply to sports practices either.
As noted, it's not illegal.

But, you could also move practice to the afternoon like most school sports. None of my high school's athletic programs were before class.