Argumentative Essay On School Start Time

It is a well known fact that teenagers in general need more sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation: “[teenage sleep] is as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage stress of being a teen.” When schools start as early as 7 o’clock, it puts students health at risk. Adolescents already have a natural shift in their internal body clock, or circadian rhythm when it comes to sleep. Puberty allows this to happen, causing a “sleep phase delay” of about two hours. When teens can't fall asleep until late and school starts so early, they aren't getting nearly enough sleep. Lack of such, according to CDC, makes the individual

Schools all around the nation have starting times for school, that are too early for the students and teachers alike. Schools starting times should be 8:30 in the morning or later, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Sleep loss has become more common in children due to early start times which only gives them 6-7 hours of sleep a night when growing children should have 8-9 hours a night. children suffer the chronic loss of sleep due to the hormonal roller coaster that you call puberty, which only lets them begin to go into a REM sleep around 10 p.m. . It’s also been proven that adolescent children suffer from highers risks of physical health problems, mental health problems, lower test scores, missing school, substance abuse, and being in a car crash due to sleep deprivation. Students end up having to get up before 6:30 to get ready and catch the bus or walk to school, but when you have to study for hours after school, eat, clean up, participate in extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs, and do chores in less than 4 hours to get the sleep they require to be healthy mentally and physically it’s almost impossible. School should start later to better our future generations, with more sleep we could have more positive members of societies.

Most people want peace in life well did you know that sleeping is the most peaceful thing you can do? Just think about how many times you woke up for school and just wanted to sleep a little bit longer well, just imagine if you could sleep two hours longer. A lot of teens have busy schedules and never really have time to get a full 8 hours of sleep. Unfortunately some teens are exhausted of not getting enough sleep and can lead to disease,depression,anxiety,and obesity. Schools should start later because kids need to rest and to stay healthy.

As a result of a changing body and mind, adolescent sleep cycles have different needs than those of adults or younger children. As a matter of fact, Biologically, sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm (“Teens”). In addition to biological change in sleep patterns, teenagers also tend to have eccentric sleep cycles. Obtaining less than healthy hours of sleep during the school week and then catching up on their sleep on the weekends. Most teenagers during the school week, do not get the suggested amount of sleep. In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, 80% of teenagers do not get the suggested amount of sleep of 9 hours on school nights (“School Start”). With changing bodies and minds, along with an increased amount of schoolwork and extracurricular activities, teenagers need more sleep than children of a younger age. Experts believe that moving back the start time of school for high school students will improve grades, test scores, and the overall health and personality of many students.

The drowsiness of adolescents contributes to over 100,000 crashes per year. Students being drowsy is from being sleep deprived from the early school start times and that is one of the reasons why they get no sleep. Schools shouldn’t be starting early in the morning because it affects adolescents mental and physical health, their academic performance and it doesn’t let them get the recommended amount of sleep.

The primary reason for attending school is for adolescents to get an education in hopes of getting a good job.  Attendance, test scores, and GPA’s all play an important role in a student’s success in school, and if they can all be improved by pushing the start time back, then this issue should be pushed further.  The root problem of students not performing to their full potential has to do with the inability to focus from drowsiness in class due to the lack of sleep they are getting.  To support this point, Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior, and his team, “found that students showed up for morning classes seriously sleep-deprived and that the 7:20 a.m. start time required them to be awake during hours that ran contrary to their internal clocks” (Richmond).  In other words, Carskadon believes that current high school start times go against teens’ natural sleep patterns, making them be awake at a time where their bodies aren’t ready to get up yet.  This causes concentration issues making paying attention in class harder, and kids not getting the best grades they can.  Also, sleep won’t get any

Wahlstrom reports on the contentious discussion and debate about whether or not schools should consider switching to later start times. When classes start before 8:15, students become sleep deprived causing memory deficits, impaired performance and alertness, and being able to stay on task. Even though there are all these negative consequences to early start times why do schools still continue to start before 8:15? Wahlstrom mentioned the possible reasons why more schools have not made the switch. Wahlstrom stated, “As other districts consider the change to a later start for their high schools… an extremely contentious decision because administrators do not want any local advocacy group or start policymaker to interfere in a decision normally

While reading “Why School Should Start Later in the Morning” written by Emily Richmond, it is stated that, “We have to convince school systems this has to happen for the health of kids… it’s an absolute requirement.” With that being said, school board officials are not just changing the starting time to later at random, but more so to help improve students’ health all around. With not enough sleep students can become sleep deprived which can lead to many health issues. Students who do receive enough sleep will have improvement with the tendency of impulsive, on the scene decision making. Gonchar also states that “teens going through puberty have a late release of “sleep” hormone melatonin…” With the late release of the hormone melatonin, students going through the

The CDC press release reported fewer “than 1 in 5 middle and high schools in the U.S. began the school day at the recommended 8:30 AM start time or later” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1). Anne Wheaton an epidemiologist in the CDC’s division of Population Health explained that getting enough sleep is important for students “health safety, and academic performance“ however “Early school start times are preventing many adolescents from getting the sleep they need” (1). The American Medical Association issued a 2016 policy statement supporting delayed school start times to improve adolescent wellness. Specifically the new policy calls on “school districts across the United States to implement middle and high school start times no earlier than 8:30 a.m.” (American Medical Association 1). As with the other health organizations the AMA mentioned health concerns as a primary reason for recommending later school start times. “Sleep deprivation is a growing public health issue affecting our nation’s adolescents, putting them at risk for mental, physical and emotional distress and disorders” (1). The AMA believes delaying school

School districts expect us to wake up half an hour after the crack of dawn, go to school and while groggy and sleep deprived, and still expect us to surrender our full attention in each and every one of our 6 periods. Sending sleep-deprived teenagers to school as early as 5:30 is dangerously unhealthy, unsafe, and evidently counterproductive. According to the American Academy ofPediatrics, without receiving the appropriate amount of sleep teenagers find it 60% harder to focus in class. Lack of sleep can lead to excessive fatigue, emotional distress, laziness, obesity and a lowered perception of quality of

On average in today’s society most teens don’t like going to school that early in the morning. To have to wake up so early when they only get about seven hours of sleep, to have students be coming into school at 7:30AM or maybe even earlier in some other schools, is not right. Students need to have time at night to get work done, not only schoolwork but also non-schoolwork. Needless to say, the school schedule for high school students needs to be changed and be made where they go in later. That way they get their work done and get enough sleep because without much sleep students will not be getting high grades. A health survey that the University Health Center administered showed them that one in four students say that lack of sleep has

In discussions of whether or not schools should start later, one controversial issue has been that it gets in the way of parents work schedules. People who believe that it’s too much of an inconvenience claim that it’s never too soon to start getting used to an early schedule. On the other hand, those who believe schools should start later assert that it’s much better for a student's concentration and overall health. My own view is there are more benefits than negatives and we should really start to consider such a change.

Biological shifts during the teenage years drive the need for longer sleep durations and later wake times, research shows (Blad). In Seattle, the district took action and has approved a revised schedule for schools that sets the start times for high schools and most middle schools at 8:45am (Kennedy). School should start later, but it is hard to make that happen over night. Shifting start times often causes conflicts with carefully crafted family schedules and the timing of afterschool activities and sports (Blad). Changing start times for secondary schools typically forces districts to either expand their transportation budgets to buy or lead more buses, or to also shift start times for elementary schools to make the schedules work (Blad). These are common, understandable reasons given the fact that parents are concerned about elementary school times that do not align with their work schedules and later end times for high school students, which would leave some younger siblings at home alone after they were dropped off. On the other hand, the change in times would be capable of being adjusted to and built around whereas minors suffering from sleep deprivation and health risks is not.Yet, despite the CDC’s research, five out of every six middle and high schools ring their first bell before

A big reason school’s may enjoy having a later start time, is because it can contribute to the school’s success. A later start time can improve the school’s overall test scores (Why We Must - and Can - Restore Safe & Healthy School Hours). Students can learn their best when they are not tired or drowsy. The School Start Later — Healthy Hours campaign stated that, “Academic improvements have been shown, and overall school climate has been measurably improved when high schools have restored later start times,” (Why We Must - and Can - Restore Safe & Healthy School Hours). The sleep researcher mentioned earlier, Wendy Troxel, said in her presentation that when kid’s are woken up by an alarm, they are literally robbed of their dreams. Dreams are associated with learning development. In order for student’s to use the most of their brains, they need to be receiving the right amount of good quality sleep. Not only do test scores rise, but so does the graduation rate, which is a major problem in today’s generation (Why We Must - and Can - Restore Safe & Healthy School Hours). In contribution to the student success, later start times could drastically improve the school’s success. Later start times have increased attendance around

It is often said that the early bird gets the worm, but that is not the case for school start times. Many schools across the country have adolescents wake up in the wee hours of the morning to get ready and go to school. Evidence from complete studies suggests that teenagers are seriously sleep deprived. Waking up so early is not always beneficial, although some people do believe that it is efficient. School start times should be later because it improves adolescents’ health and academic performance, and it can increase the safety of the community.