Persuasive Essay: Why Schools 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.

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.

If we were to start school later, academic GPA’s (grade point averages) would definately increase. Isn’t this what we want in our school? It is proven that the more sleep you get, the more awake and alert you actually are. I interviewed Michael Claffey, a sophomore at Newington High School, he stated “ Goooooud.” Also Jorge Premto a sophomore at Newington High School stated “Yes Michael, yes I do believe school should start at nine o’clock am. This will thus help further my education because I will be well rested.” In all, we need school to start later because it will help us with our education.

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.

“Kids bodies inner clocks make it hard for kids to go to bed before 10:30 or 11 p.m, but to get to school on time kids have to wake up as early as 4:30 in the morning”, says Ashley Yeager. Starting school this early is not in sync with kid’s bodies. Therefore, the school board should change the start times to middle and high schools because kids focus better and achieve more; it improves your health and increases scores on tests.

Have you ever had to go to sleep early because you had something important the next day and you needed a good night's sleep? Schools are starting later and later as researchers are saying that kids perform better when they get more sleep. There a a lot of reasons to support this, one is that it has been proven that kids do better on tests and quizzes following a good night’s sleep. School starting later could help with child obesity. It has been proven that when school starts later that there is improved attendance, graduation rates, and reduced car crash rates. School starting later would benefit the teachers and staff as well. The graduation rate alone is one very good reason for school to start later. School should start at at least 9:00.

Schools should start later so students can focus better. “A 2012 study by an economist after 146,000 middle school students in North Carolina started school by an hour later showed math and reading scores went up by two to three percentile points.” This evidence proves that later start times mean improved grades. Students aren't as alert in school because they are always too tired to focus. But with a later start time that will change and kids will be able to get better grades.

Are you up too late finishing homework, or playing video games late at night? Having a later school start can help students be energetic, safe, and improve in school work. Teenagers nowadays need more sleep than they use to need when they were younger. For these reasons schools should implement a later start time.

School start times should be later in order to help the millions of students who don't get enough sleep. Though most people have been told sleep is important, most do not know how truly important it is. People who have inadequate sleep can have short/long term memory loss, paranoia and many symptoms. Mostly mental problems from taking unnecessary risks to failing a math problem. But people who get 9-10 hours can avoid serious health problems such as depression, insomnia and suicide. Just by getting a little extra sleep.

Firstly, schools starting later would affect your health and day in a good way. "Both American Academy of Pediatricsand the Centers for Disease Control reccomend school to start at 8:30 A.M." (Lewis, Lisa L.) The quote above supports my argument because they also defend the argument of schools starting later. The connection between my argument and the quote is that they support my argument. The source also says, "teenagers resign themselves to another year of fighting their body clocks so they can get to class" (Lewis, Lisa.L) The sentence shows how students fight their body clocks everyday, which support the statement of schools starting later. Both the quote and explanation show how teenagers struggle when fighting their

Thomas Decker once said, “Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” School. There’s a lot of things people can say about it. Mostly they’re arguments about school such as should school have trimester or semesters? Or maybe school should be year round rather than having a summer break. However, out of all those, one in particular caught my eye. Should school start later? Now me being a student myself, this was very enticing. Being able to sleep more and have a full night's rest would be delightful. I, myself, believe that school starting later would be beneficial for school and the kids going to school. It would have its pros and cons, but it would be an overall positive impact to everyone.

First of all, I think schools should start later. They should start later because it shows improvement in the way students perform throughout the day. A study at the US Air Force Academy showed students that started classes

Although school needs to be early as to not impede on after-school activities, school should start later in the morning because teenagers sleep schedules are not accommodated by early school starting times, causing teenagers to lack sleep, leading to sleep deprivation, which can lead to depression, poor performance in academic classes, and can lead to bad decisions.

To understand why schools should start later, one must examine the major problem: sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is becoming a major problem among adolescents. Adolescents are recommended to have between eight and a half and nine and a half hours of sleep daily but many are receiving less. According to the National Sleep Foundation, only fourteen percent achieve this goal, and approximately seventy percent of adolescents obtain less than eight hours of sleep on a typical weeknight (Boergers 4). Adolescents are not receiving this required amount of daily sleep due to the fact of a early school start time and many distractions throughout the day. Teenagers

Having later school start times can have both positive and negative impacts on students and parents, it could affect how schools run on a day to day basis and it would have an effect on after-school activities. Starting schools later would have certain effects on students performance in school. Since most schools begin so early it makes it difficult for students to get the necessary and beneficial eight hours of sleep, especially when they had after-school obligations. Sleep deprived students or young adults resort to drinking highly caffeinated beverages and using sleep medications as a way to control sleep (Stainburn, S. 2014). Beginning schools later would help the issue of students falling asleep during class. Starting schools just thirty minutes later would help students to be more alert in class (Park, A. 2010).