High School Start Times

Students need a good amount of sleep to be able to focus and get through the school day. Students ability to function during school is impacted by the quantity, regularity, and quality if their sleep (Wolfson 1). The quality of sleep is not only important for the students but it is also important for the teachers. The quality of sleep affects the way students and teachers act throughout the day. Daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality on school days in students and teachers may comprise school and work performance (De Souza 5). Since students and teachers stay up so late at night, they tend to be very tired during the day. It is important to get sleep but it is more important to get a good sleep. There is not really a point in sleeping or trying to get sleep when it is not a good sleep because no matter what students will be tired during the day. While the quality of sleep is important, so is the amount of sleep a student or teacher is getting on school nights.

As the education of Americans continues to fail in comparison to other countries, it is imperative that we don’t further weaken our school day by making school start later. This is important to take into consideration when deciding school start times, as well as many other facts. District officials nationwide have been discussing or even implementing a later start time in their schools. However, this will just cause more problems and hurt the students and everybody else concerned more than help them. Children need to learn how to manage their time and get the amount of sleep they need. We cannot keep enabling by starting school later.

The school day should start later in order improve students’ mental health. Survey results have consistently indicated that middle level and high school students who start school at 7:15 a.m. or earlier obtain less total sleep on school nights due to earlier rise times in comparison to students at later-starting schools. () This is just the beginning of the negative impacts that early start times have on students. By starting school at a later time, students’ brains will function better, their grades and learning increases, and will be more mentally stable.

Imagine: a world where a biological necessity is not seen as a priority, and adolescent’s educations are suffering. This is how schools’ think about sleep.What all human beings need to survive is being put on the back burner by most schools in America- sleep(11a). It has been proven through the process of scientific research that sleep is necessary on the same level as food or activity. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation is a chronic health problem that many youths suffer from today. Teens are naturally predisposed to go to sleep around 11 pm, but are forced to wake up around 6:15, not allowing any time for adequate sleep (“Backgrounder: Later school start Times” 1). Irregular sleep patterns during teenage years can cause long-term

fatigue overwhelms you the whole day. Now imagine that you slept this was every night. Accomplishing simple tasks would be difficult if one is sleep deprived. Performing at your potential would almost be impossible. In order to get rid of these unforgettable feeling many people would sleep late and go to bed early. But with such early start times for high school many students feel sleep deprived and do not achieve their best. Doing so would improve students health. Some individuals feel that keeping the start times at their current time would be best for parents and school districts. However, many people believe that delaying school start times would positively

In the first place, students are not getting enough sleep. In the article “Should School Start later” by Lisa M. Herrington [20] “According to the National Sleep Foundation “59% of 6th-8th graders and 87% of high schoolers aren't getting the sleep they require”. This quote shows that students are not getting the sleep they need. And kids must wake up early how are they getting the sleep we need. “So why don’t kids just go to sleep earlier? It’s not that simple” Says Danny Lewin, a sleep specialist at Children's National Health system in Washington, D.C. “Adolescents have a deeply programmed biological clock to go to bed later and wake later” Says

Each year, exhausted teenagers leave themselves to another day of battling their bodies clocks so they can get in class on time. It's outstanding that teenagers who don't get eight hours of rest a night confronts a large number of issues. That is the reason why both the American Institute of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control recommend shifting middle- and high-school start times to 8:30 a.m or later. However, during 2011-2012 school year, the latest statistics accessible — just 17.7 % of the national public middle, high and combined schools met the 8:30 a.m. rule, and almost 40% began before 8 a.m. In California, the normal start time was 8:07 a.m.

It is to be true that a regular high school student needs 8-10 hours of sleep so that their bodies can rest in addition to recover from a long day. However, the students bodies are not functioning correctly on a school day which generates a slow reaction speed as well as alertness at school. Their bodies are not functioning correctly due to the load of sleep that they obtain regularly. Statistics from (McKibben, 2015) analyses that 2/3 of high school students are getting less than seven hours of sleep. They are

One of the biggest struggles for students today, is the struggle to wake up for school in the mornings, and to make it to class on time. Because of the start times that many high and middle schools currently have, students are having to get up early to get ready, therefore providing them with little sleep at night. They are faced with their everyday schedules, things that are happening in other parts of their lives, as well as having to keep up with their schoolwork. All of this results in a loss of sleep, with the added factor of having to wake up early in the mornings. Having a later start time for schools is beneficial for student’s health, safety, and their overall performance in school.

The denial of it has been used to torture many times. If you go without for too long, you will experience psychosis-like symptoms, along with long-term memory impairment, impaired cognitive functions, depression, high blood pressure, and probable mortality (a.k.a. death). As a society, not only to we withhold it from ourselves, but we impose an impoverished state on others. The mysterious formula? Sleep.

The Start School Later movement, it refers to a series of efforts by healthcare professionals, sleep scientists, educators, economists, legislators, parents, students, and other concerned citizens to restore a later start to the school day (KYLA L.WAHLSTROM). Based on a growing body of evidence that starting middle and high schools too early in the morning is unhealthy, counterproductive, and incompatible with adolescent sleep needs and patterns. In the second half of the 20th century, many public schools in the United States began shifting instructional time earlier than the more conventional bell time, thought to be about 9 a.m. Today it is common for American schools to begin the instructional day in the 7 a.m. hour and end about seven hours later, around 2 p.m. In the early 1990s, the University of Minnesota's landmark school start time study tracked high school students from two Minneapolis area districts (KYLA L.WAHLSTROM). Edina, a suburban district that changed its opening hour from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and the Minneapolis Public Schools, which changed their opening from 7:20 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. Many positive benefits to students were found, including: Improved attendance and enrollment rates, Less sleeping in class, Less student-reported depression, Fewer student visits to school counselors for behavioral and peer issues, and More even temperament at home. “Everybody learns better when they’re awake.” (startschoollater.net). Researchers analyzed data from more than 9,000 students at eight high schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming and found that shifting the school day later in the morning resulted in a boost in attendance, test scores, and grades in math, English, science, and social studies. Schools also saw a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression. Some even had a dramatic drop in teen car

As the sun is barely rising Victoria is already on the school bus going to Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson Arizona. Finally, by the time third period is practically over she begins to wake up and feel ready to learn, but the school day is already halfway at an end. Seventy percent of teens aren’t getting enough sleep and this could be contributing to why they can’t focus or retain information in their first classes like Victoria (O’Neill 1). Whether or not school should start later to fix this problem has become a large debate in today’s society. Later start times are beneficial for adolescents because it will decrease rates of sleep deprivation and fit their biological rhythm, as well as bring importance to the issue, even though

“When schools have delayed the start of the school day, communities have seen reduced tardiness, sleeping in class, and car crash rates, as well as improved attendance, graduation rates, and standardized test scores” (School Start Later). There has been much debate whether start times for school should be kept where they are at or if they should be pushed back later. Research says that the teenage brain does not fully wake up till eight a.m. or later. So why don’t school systems make the decision to push back school start times for high school students? Although there are a few benefits to school starting earlier such as family time or an after school job, but the benefits of starting school later are much greater. Public schools should initiate later start times to increase the level of academic achievement, create a more positive attitude toward learning, and reduce the amount of stress on students.

For years and years there has been a lot of discussion about when a reasonable time for students to wake up and go to school should be. There are two main sides. One side believes that school should start later, and the other side believes that the school start times should not be changed. The average teenagers’ alarm for school goes off as early as 6:00 A.M. A little less than half of U.S. public schools start before 8:00 A.M. Studies show that over half of students are not getting 8 hours of sleep or more. That leads to the 33% of teenagers who are found asleep in the classroom (Owens).

There is a myriad of reasons which explain why students become sleep deprived during the school timings. For example, students are busy and have to juggle many things like jobs, extracurricular activities, chores, and homework after school (Epstein and Mardon, 2). With all these obligations, people cannot possibly expect students to get to bed on time and receive the needed nine hours of sleep. Even if they could finish their duties early, they are teenagers after all and want to have fun rather than habitually carrying out their perfunctory duties. When they have free time, they go to