Earlier School Start Times

Most students when the wake up feel drowsy or tired because they have to go to school before 8:00 am. Schools should have later start times for many reason some include that they just need more sleep and that if they do not get enough sleep it could be dangerous.

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).

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.

Almost 10% of U.S. high schools start before 7:30 a.m. Over 20% of middle schools start class at 7:45 a.m. or earlier. This is leaving students everywhere overwhelmed and tired. This can lead to tremendous effects on their health and grades. Research shows that only do later start times improve those things, but ends up increasing the school's yearly income in the long run. For these reasons, schools should make their hours later because it can affect students grades and health in a positive way.

It has come to my attention that kids are going to school tired therefore looking like zombies. A good reason for this is that they are waking up so early for school. These reasons listed are why students should start school a little later in the morning. School should start later since students are not getting enough sleep, having health issues, consequently are getting severe and students are being tardy due to lack of sleep.

The school changed their start time from 7:15 a.m., to 8:40 a.m. (Boergers, 3). After this change, the students acquired an extra hour of sleep and the number of students who were fatigue decreased (Boergers, 3). The school also noticed that there were fewer absent kids and the percent of enrolled students increased (Boergers, 4). Another example is a boarding school with different start times in the spring and winter (Boergers, 4). In the spring, school started at 8 a.m. and in the winter classes began at 8:25 a.m. (Boergers, 4). Although there is not a drastic time difference the school noticed the differences in the students. In the winter, there was a reduced amount of depression, a reduced number of students who depending on caffeine, such as energy drinks or soda, and reduced tardiness (Boergers, 5). Another impact this minor time change created was that there was less daytime napping and less students who fell asleep in class (Boergers, 5). On average, these students only obtained an extra 29 minutes of sleep per night, but the number of students receiving eight or greater hours of sleep nearly doubled (Boergers, 5). Consequently, when the school began their spring hours, the students fell back to the baseline, their test scores dropped and the number of hours they

Opponents of a later high school start time argue that teenagers won’t really get more sleep, they’ll just stay up later instead.  Students have activities and homework after school, and the later start time would just push it later into the night.  In “Controversy Over School Start Times,” journalist Laura VanDemark, a staff writer for Mainstream said that a survey from the April 15, 2013 meeting of the Montgomery County Regional Student Government Association general assembly showed that, “only 43% of students believed that a later start time would allow them to get more sleep”(VanDemark).  To elaborate, if less than half of the students thought they wouldn’t get more sleep with a later start time, then they probably wouldn’t in reality either. Though it is a valid point, students’ internal clocks, or their

Have you ever been really tired when you wake up for school in the morning? Sleep is very important to all teens, or it should be. Young adults should have 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep every night, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), in Sarah McKibben’s article “Wake Up Calls”. Unfortunately, two-thirds of teens are getting less than 7 hours of sleep each night, according to the NSF’s chart. This is causing a large number of schools and scientists to think that schools should start later in the morning. I fiercely disagree with this. Schools should not start later because starting later for high schools would cause too many negative consequences.

Redondo Beach Unified school district should implement that all schools in the district need start an hour later. 60% of children under the age of 18 complained to their parents about being tired, and 15% said they fell asleep during the school year. Across our country, Evidence has shown that teenagers are indeed seriously sleep deprived, affecting their school work.

The students of this generation appear to be a bunch of lazy, depressed, unenergetic zombies, but is this entirely their fault? After a considerable amount of investigating it appears as if their lack of energy could be due to sleep deprivation resulting from early school start times. When later school times have been compared to those schools that start earlier, there are significant changes in the behaviors and results that students emit in a school environment. Schools should have a later start time that is better suited to the biological needs of adolescents as a way to aid them in achieving a higher quality education.

Schools should start later because students need more time to rest in the morning. Some reasons also show that it will mess up schedules. With more rest comes more energy and with more energy comes better grades. Studies have shown that schools that start later often have better performing students.

We have all have those days where getting out of bed for school can be a huge battle. Well, to be fair, it's the worst you don’t feel like being proactive and getting to school. As children grow older and they move to different schools from elementary to junior high to high school the start times just get earlier. With school starting, early teen now have not got enough sleep that is needed for their age. School should start later in the morning so that kids are able to improve their daily performances, to be able to understand and take in the knowledge that is being taught to them, and able to get the right amount of sleep that is needed. The benefits of school starting have such a major impact on students, so the question is are with the idea of school starting later?

Opinions about schools starting time differ all over the United States. Many districts around the United States are trying to start a movement to have school start later than they usually do. 70 districts across the nation are going to start at 8:45. If this happens, it can change the schedules of a big amount of students tremendously. In the article on Newsela, facts are stated about how lots of schools use scientists advice for when they should start school. Based on the article titled, ¨More zzz’s can lead to more A’s: Seattle Schools Move Start Time for Teens¨, one believes that Beaumont High School should not change the start time to begin class later due to transportation,sports’ schedules, and the late dismissal.

Having high school students implementing electronics curfew can only help so much, it is our job as a society to address the issues surrounding early high school start time and the damages it is causing to the student’s body. Through reading multiple research papers, all of the scientists agree that the most effective way for high school students to actually receive sufficient amount of sleep is to push the currently early start time backwards. To do this, we have to raise the awareness of this problem to the national level, and actually present to the public why early school time is bad for high school students and the numerous side-effects of being sleep deprived, such as anxiety depression and substance abuse. We have to correct the common misconception of teenagers likes sleeping in because they like being lazy. The easiest solution to basically all of the problems lack of sleep has caused to high school student is to have a bill passed and making 9-10 AM as the earliest start time allowed. Having this bill passed might sound easy, but in reality, it is actually not that simple. The issue doesn’t lie within the bill, but what comes after. The way our society operates as we know it would need to change. The first thing that would be affected are when parents go to work. While a lot of American teenagers drive to school, the majority is still taking the bus or being dropped off by their parents. In order for the parents to drop their kids off at school, jobs have to start

" Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," said Ben Franklin. While most experts believe that a teen should get 9 hours of sleep, only 15% get that much sleep. With schools starting as early as 7:00 a.m (School Start Time and Sleep), most teenagers are only getting 7 hours of sleep (Sleep in Adolescents (13-18 Years)). In fact, " a recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 60% of children under the age of 18 complained of being tired during the day, according to their parents, and 15% said they fell asleep at school during the year" (School Start Time and Sleep). When entering school, many teenagers look like zombies with their eyes half shut and posture sagging. This lack of sleep causes many problems, both physically and mentally. Therefore, in order to help students throughout the nation, school times should be changed and started later.