Organization urges others to join plight

To the Editor:

Mornings are getting darker. On Oct. 20, in central Indiana, sunrise will occur at 8 a.m.

But most of Indiana's 1.35 million students will already be seated in their classrooms while the sun comes up.

They will have walked to school or waited for their school bus in the darkness of night.

How ready are students to learn when it's still dark outside?

Studies show that students living in the eastern edge of a time zone perform better in school than those living in the western edge.

Yet, Indiana is actually west of the western edge of Eastern Time Zone's natural boundaries. Ours is the only state in the USA that is totally in its wrong geographic time zone. Could this be contributing to Indiana's poor school performance ratings? Common sense says yes.

Every two-hour weather delay for start-of-school means two hours of classroom instruction lost and never regained.

Since schools opened in August, 35 schools districts have declared two-hour weather delays due to fog. An additional hour of morning sunlight could reduce most of those delays to one-hour delays.

Isn't this another way that Indiana's abnormal lack of morning sunlight is contributing to our poor school performance ratings?

Central Time is the correct time for Indiana's students and their education. For more information and to be placed on a contact list, visit and sign in www.hoosiersforcentraltime.com.

Sue Dillon, spokesperson,

Central Time Coalition,

Carmel