Essay on Should the United States' School Schedule Be Extended?

Over 87% of teenagers don’t get enough sleep and go to school tired. Teenagers have constant expectations to live up to, but with the amount of sleep they’re getting it can be seemingly impossible. The question has been brought up time and time again, should the school day start later? Because of the risks of not getting enough sleep, trying to keep up with their their busy schedules, and being in their adolescent years, having the school day start later would help teenagers around the world immensely.

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.

“The U.S. research challenges one of the main arguments for abandoning conventional schedules: year- round schooling improves achievement because it prevents students from falling behind during the summer and because it does not waste precious time reviewing past years’ lessons”

Most schools in America today follow the traditional 180-day schooling system. This system was started in the 19th century when schooling for children began. There was a 10-week summer vacation for the students to help their families on the farm for harvesting. In March of 2009, President Barak Obama suggested to the public his Race to the Top program. The program is to extend the school hours or extend the school days. “We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day,” he says. His reason is the students of school today will not be equipped for the 21st century if we continue to use the traditional

To the counter-argument, Ballenger & Kneese say it best: “Of what value is there to a community of having most of its classrooms unused for fully 25% of the possible school days each year, when America 's students need more, rather than less, education?” As it stands, concerns concerning loss of learning over the extended summer break remain prevalent. Changing to a year-long school schedule would close that learning gap, allowing students higher retention. However, as Gabrieli states in Koonce (2015), even schools that add “25 percent more time each year – or the equivalent of three extra years of school for students” (p. 236) can achieve this increase merely by extending the school day with no adjustment in summer breaks. Expanded hours and days “can ensure at risk students keep up academically; develop attachment to school through such activities as sports, arts, and drama; and develop the beliefs and behaviors consistent with success” (p.236). The proponents of expanded learning time (ELT) may attest that “the greatest opportunity that expanded learning time offers for improving academic achievement comes from being able to better individualize instruction—putting the right teachers with the right students and focusing on the right skills” (Koonce, 2015). ELT allows students to learn that “through hard work, they can excel through the odds, but that [success] requires time” (Koonce, 2015). Supporters of expanded learning time argue that there is a sizeable benefit from

Nelson Mandela once said “Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world”. School boards today are taking these words to heart, as they are concerned about student’s education more than ever. The solution to their concerns of students weakening education is the method of Year Round Schools. This supposed “education-saving” method offers the same amount of school days except the traditional summer break is exchanged for smaller breaks throughout the year. Although this method is supposed to boost students learning and intelligence it is actually not all that it is cracked up to be. Year Round Schooling essentially causes more harm than good because it does not benefit the students at all, it is a

Many people, including President Barack Obama believe that year round schooling is the best option for American students, because the year round system gives students equal amount of time in school, while increasing the efficiency of a single school building (Ave 1B). “More than two million students in some three thousand U.S. schools attend year round programs in 41 states” (Lawson 48). This astonishing number seems large, but really is only 2% of students in the United States. Many of the perceived advantages of year round schooling revolve around cost and learning efficiency, but in reality the traditional system gives essentially equal

Even though that schools are starting too early and students aren 't getting enough sleep. Schools should start later because teens can get more sleep and teens can get their work on time., That schools should start later so students can learn better. because Teens are falling asleep in class because they are getting to school early. and Schools are starting too early and should start later.

From the early 1900’s through today, America society as a whole has embraced the nine month general education school year. As we progress into the future, we need to look for more efficient ways to educate the general populous. When we initially went to a nine month school year, there were a multitude of reasons. As we look at the reasons why we began to utilize a nine month school schedule, we need to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of transitioning to a year round school model. While we continue to grow and expand as a nation, we need to reevaluate our current school model. From this, we will look at why schools should transition to year round schools, and abandon the

The idea of having a year round school schedule has been thought about at the state level throughout the country for many years, especially in the past two decades. The driving idea behind the argument is that if year round school is put into place, there would be an increase in academic performance because students will not forget what they learned so easily. This change of schedule will obviously have a lasting effect on society, with child care, vacations, regular living, and social life would have a major change on every family. Other operations would have a dramatic change if summer vacation would be taken away. Federal and state government, churches, businesses, the school’s community, and public

Researchers examined scores across the same group of students for four years, and across the same grade level. Results showed that the change in schedule had no observable impact on test performance (Donis-Keller and Silvernail, 2009). Similar studies were also conducted in school districts in New Mexico, Idaho and South Dakota with comparable results showing. (Herring) claims that research gauging the impact of a four-day school week on student learning is scarce. Officials in various states claim that comparisons and conclusions are difficult to make. There has been no broad analysis of crucial test scores—on statewide achievement tests or college entrance exams—to show whether there are knowledge gaps or not for students in four-day districts (Herring, 2010). In a recent newspaper article (Sheehy) chronicles the experiences of a Garfield School District in Colorado who recently made the switch to a four-day week. According to the article, Garfield's reading and writing scores increased between four and six percent at the high school level, but math scores remained the same. But district officials aren't reading too much into the scores. Theresa Hamilton, the schools superintendent said, “One year of data does not make a trend, as a district, that data didn’t say anything significant either way. It’s not helping or hindering.” (Sheehy, 2013) The article also gives

According to a report from the New York City district, a school that received funds for longer days fared better on standardized tests. This school had seven percent more students scoring at or above grade level in reading, when two other schools had increases of five and six percent. In math, three percent of students scored at or above grade level in a school with a longer day, compared with one percent for a low performing school and an average of one percent for other schools (Brett 1). This information is one example of many studies that illustrate that long school days have a great positive impact on school performance. The main school goals are improving students’ knowledge and building different skills that will help them in the future. Therefore, if longer school days support these educational goals, people should be concerned about improving schools by lengthening the day.

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.

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.

Some people think that we should have an 8 hour school day. Having a longer school could help