Why School Should Start Later

Staying up until 1am to finish math homework and studying for that huge history test next class is pretty routine for some teens. Juggling school, sports, a social life, and other extracurriculars is tough, and teens are already in a critical period in their life. It is the time period in which teens grow and learn the most, and sets them up for a bright future. Staying healthy both mentally and physically is imperative, and sleep is probably the most important. Schools starting as early as 7am limits a teen’s potential. If schools were to start later, the benefits would be endless. Schools starting later improves both physical and mental health of students, keeps the individual and those around them safer, and improves students performance in school and sports.

Teenagers need more sleep. If schools start school later, students would be less tired. A study of eight schools in Minnesota started school 1 hour later and grades and morale went up and tardiness went down. It has been scientifically proven in a test they did in Minnesota that 8 schools stated later and most of the students grades went up they were happier and everyone seemed more

Having a later school start time can increase a student’s academic grades and awareness. Thirty-three percent of teens say that they fell asleep in class. Even though this is a small portion of teens, falling asleep in class shouldn’t even happen once. Also, this means they are getting less than what they need,(eight to nine hours of sleep a night). A school needs to pack as much teaching time as they can in a day, but if that means waking up a student at a time so early, then there's no point.When a student doesn’t sleep as much, students are not aware as they would be if they had a good night’s rest. If students had this sleep, the would pay more attention in class. Therefor, a student would have better grades.

Delaying the time that school starts could affect the amount of sleep that students receive. An average teen is supposed to obtain 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep each night. There is a national debate of whether or not to start school at a later time. Students, Parents, teachers, and even bus drivers all need their sleep. Why not start school earlier if teens are struggling to get to bed from after school

Beep-Beep-Beep. The loud shrill of your alarm wakes you up from your deep sleep. Have you ever wanted school to start later? Maybe all you wanted was to just fall back to sleep. School districts have been looking at pushing school start times for older students who could get extra sleep for a long time. There have even had studies conducted to find the benefits of a later start. But have they looked at the consequences? School start times should stay the same.

About 40 percent of American high schools start classes before 8 a.m., and more than 20 percent of middle schools start at 7:45 a.m. or earlier. Studies show that starting school later-even by half an hour- has major health and academic benefits. Some people say that pushing for late school starts is unacceptable while the majority of other state later school start times are exceptional. School starts should be pushed back because kids are more energized, and receive health benefits.

One reason why high school start times should be pushed back is because of teenage body clocks. The body clock of a teenager is completely different than those of an adult or young child. The reason behind this is melatonin. Melatonin is a sleep- inducing hormone that naturally tells the body when you need to sleep. Research shows that teenagers normally do not start producing melatonin until late at night; usually around 11 p.m. Also, research shows that teenagers do not stop producing melatonin until 8 a.m., which is normally when their first class of the day begins. Since

Research proves that when a teenager tries to change their sleeping schedule it becomes difficult because they are used too going to sleep late. Some high schools are thinking about changing the time they begin and let out so that students could get on the right sleeping track. Schools should not change the time because some students are already used too the schedule that they have now.

Also, it will take away the opportunity for students to prepare themselves for early college classes in the future. As one mom states on her blog “If teens are going to school later and later, they won't train their bodies to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.  Training their bodies is something that will be useful to them in adult life,” (Grose). Some principles at school still do not believe that pushing back the school start do would be beneficial. They say it is because students only take into account school starting later and not having to stay in school for the same number of hours a day. Also, that children enjoy getting out at 2 or 3 pm because then they have time for extracurricular activities and do not have to miss school if they participate in a sport (Rasicot). People against later start times feel the problem solved could be solved instead by better teen discipline.

Pushing school back would only make it worse. If school doesn't start until 9a.m, kids are gonna stay up later. They also would have to start their homework later, which means they won't get to bed until later. So pushing back the start time would be very bad for students. Changing the school time would also make it inconvenient for parents.

The Atlantic website stated that starting school at a later time will boost our attendance, test scores, and overall grades. Believe it or not a lot of students are late to class all the time, so if we get better sleep we will be wide awake and we won’t be late to class anymore, and we will get better grades. Since we will get to school later we have to get out around 3:00, so we have time to get through every class. Sadly there is also a weakness, after school we either have sports or extracurricular activities and on top of that we have to do all our homework on time before you go

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I am pushed out of my blissful dream and pulled into reality, my eyes don’t want to open, just for the noise to stop so I can go back to that wonderful peaceness in my warm bed. It’s my alarm going off, for a second I consider hitting the snooze for those extra five minutes, but I know if I do it’ll be another rushing-to-get-ready-morning. Schools should really start later! Ninety percent of teens are sleep deprived and I am one of them. Starting school about an hour later has many benefits as shown in hundreds of schools around the country. Some of these benefits include: students feeling more awake, better test scores, better attention spans and improved health. Changing school times can help students exponentially.

One of the reasons that school should be started later is because it does not give growing teens enough time to sleep. Sleep researcher, Wendy Troxel, who spoke on TED, says that high school aged kids’ sleep cycles do no start until 11 p.m and do not end until 8 a.m. This means that whenever students’ alarms go off from anywhere around 5-7:30 a.m, it simply does not

The national sleep epidemic that has taken the world by storm is also taking a toll in not only teen’s health but also their performance in school as well as personal safety. The sleep deprivation that teens are experiencing everyday has caused many health problems as well as academic problems. I believe starting school later will hinder this ever growing teen sleep deprivation problem we face today. Letting teens sleep later is beneficial to their learning capacity as their heightened alertness improved their classroom performance as well as better memory and many other crucial achievements. So probably starting school later, but no later than eight thirty am, will lead students to perform better in school and their health will improve drastically.

First of all, if school started later, the less students would be tardy. For example, I’m late to school sometimes because it starts so early. I try my best everyday to be on time, but because it starts so early, it’s hard to succeed. If the time was made later, I would have a better chance not being late. You could wake up wake up earlier, but then you’re left groggy and unalert.