by Christianna Tran ‘20

With each passing year it seems Olney is becoming less and less familiar. With businesses constantly leaving, the Olney that stands today is not the town that I have come to love. I, who will be going off to college next fall, am afraid that when I come back to the town I grew up in, it will be newly unrecognizable.

Almost all of the restaurants, stores, and community centers that I have grown up with have disappeared. When I was little, I vividly remember going to Olney 9 Cinemas to watch my first movie in theaters and going to KFC with my family for dinner. However, both of those staples were replaced by other businesses years ago. Olney Town Center was remodeled around 2005 and more recently, businesses such as Sakura and Shoppers have been replaced with IHOP and Giant.

In fact, there have been so many businesses that have left that now Olney has an abundance of empty storefronts. The spots for Hallmark, Rita’s, Cheeburger Cheeburger, and many others are now vacant, waiting for the next business to open.

To add to this, there is a ridiculous number of stores that simply aren’t needed. Within a mile radius of each other there are four Starbucks. There are also two Dunkin’ Donuts, a handful of grocery stores, nail places, and various banks within extreme proximity. It’s a shame that the town I grew up in has slowly been replaced with multiples of the same things along with big corporate businesses instead of small chains that really make the town feel like home. For instance, a family business, Olney Jewelers, was replaced by T-Mobile.

I know that with these constant changes to the town that means so much to me, I will never get the original Olney back. But instead of a mess of large chains entering, I wish to see small businesses becoming a part again. This way, Olney would have a stronger sense of home and that small town charm instead of bland shopping centers that you could find anywhere else in America. Growing up, I remember walking around Olney with my friends and family and going into stores such as Olney Toys. As shops from my childhood are replaced, the nostalgia and connection I have with my hometown weakens. Hopefully, in the near future I can see Olney start to add more charming, local-run restaurants, stores, and businesses that make the town more homely.

MCPS students can relate to this early morning struggle: drag yourself out of bed, waste time looking for articles of clothing to make the perfect outfit, prepare your lunch for the day, quickly grab a not-so-nutritious breakfast, and frantically rush out the door and hope you didn’t forget anything important. It’s a cycle that is made worse due to early school start times and little sleep students get.

In October, California decided to tackle this problem. The new bill signed into law, SB 328, mandates that public middle schools begin classes at 8 a.m. or later while high schools will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. by the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. A main supporter of the bill, the American Academy of Pediatrics, declared in 2014 that insufficient sleep for adolescents was a “public health issue” and presented studies that found links between more sleep from later start times and better school performance and health among adolescents. The California Governor, Gavin Newsom agreed, saying “The science shows that teenage students who start their day later increase their academic performance, attendance, and overall health.”

Although in 2016 MCPS pushed back school start times by 20 minutes, the county needs to follow California’s lead and go further by having high school begin classes at 8:30 am. Teens are not biologically programmed to wake up in accordance to the current school start times. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, “During adolescence, internal circadian rhythms and biological sleep drive change to result in later sleep and wake times.”

Additionally teenagers secrete the sleep hormone melatonin from about 10:45 p.m. until about 8 a.m. Adolescents typically have a hard time falling asleep until melatonin secretion begins, and are typically unable to be naturally awoken until melatonin secretion stops, according to Brown University School of Medicine professor Mary A. Carskadon. Most students are not fully aware and engaged in class in the morning and their grades may suffer because of it. According to a study which focused on 882 high school freshmen, cited by the American Academy of Sleep, “Hours of sleep per school night were significantly positively associated with GPA and level of motivation, and negatively associated with clinically significant levels of emotional disturbance and ADHD.” Additionally, a study done by the University of Washington and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on school start times in Seattle found that, “Later wake-up times were associated with grades that were 4.5 percent higher.”

Furthermore, for most students, sports are a major part of their high school experience. Physically demanding practices, combined with the body’s natural growth from puberty, makes it essential that teens get quality sleep. Extra sleep in the morning would benefit teachers too. According to Dr. Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert and neuroscientist at NIH, “Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, [etc.]” If MCPS postponed school start times it would help student athletes perform better and prevent injuries