Here’s a bedtime story for you: Asking middle school and high school students to attend class earlier than 8:30 a.m. is setting them up to fail.

So contends Start School Later, a nonprofit coalition of health professionals and educators with 94 chapters in 26 states. Citing, well, you name it — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association, the National Sleep Foundation — Start School Later lobbies, ardently, for later school start times for teenage students.

Such an accommodation, it is argued, would allow adolescents to get more and better sleep each night, perform better in school and decrease the likelihood of suffering from a raft of issues and conditions. The coalition is serious. It’s got a how-to guide on starting a petition, it’s got merchandise (including yard signs and onesies), and it’s got an ally in State Sen. Anthony Portantino. A Democrat from Southern California, Portantino authored SB 328, a bill that, if passed, would prohibit California’s public middle and high schools from starting classes earlier than 8:30 a.m.

It has already cleared the Senate. Having been passed by the Assembly Education Committee, it is now on its way to the Appropriations Committee. So yes, it is a thing.

An unworkable thing, said Marisa Hanson, head of the teachers union in the East Side Union High School District in San Jose.

“There’s no way we could get all our kids through” the day with a later start, she said. “We don’t have classroom capacity or space. We have three start times; 7, 8 and 9. We wouldn’t be able to get rid of 7 o’clock.”

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That’s the reality for a district of 18 high schools and 24,500 students. Perhaps smaller schools and/or districts would have more flexibility and therefore be a better fit for this bill.

A small sampling of elected officials indicates a wait-and-see approach to SB 328. State Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, believes this discussion should start at the local level.

“I’m a parent of young teenagers and remember my own experience of the benefit of having more sleep in the morning,” Baker said. “But instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, I think that it’s more appropriate for individual districts to have that discussion.”

State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, who says his “default is to defer to local choice,” voted no on the bill.

“My district superintendent and school board members were split on the issue,” Glazer said. “But I’m not closing a door.”

The California Department of Education, headed by State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, has not taken a position.

Understandable. There’s a lot to ask about this bill. If students need more sleep, wouldn’t it be a simple fix for them to go to bed earlier? My parents were very convincing on that point.

If you moved back the start of the school day one hour, wouldn’t that be an invitation for students to push back their bedtime?

“Kids would just go to bed later,” Hanson said. “We do it as adults.”

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Start School Later has answers, dozens of them, ringing with certitude, for every question you might have. Including my default, and maybe yours, too: I got to school early without being scarred for life.

From the coalition’s website:

“The ‘good enough for us’ mentality flies in the face of every parent’s dream to give his or her children a better future. The research is clear: Early school schedules can undermine teenagers’ ability to learn, to drive safely and to get along with others. They can even increase the likelihood of smoking, drug abuse and teen pregnancy.”

Give proponents of SB 328 an A+ for their well-meaning efforts on behalf of the adolescent students of this state. But from here, the bill is overreach wrapped in good intentions.