Summary Of Why High School Should Start Later

In “High Schools Starting Later to Help Sleepy Teens” by Michelle Trudeau and “High Schools Will Keep Starting Too Early.Here’s why.” by Dan Weissman they both have their own perspectives on life about school starting times and the problems they may bring to the students of high schools.In Michelle Trudeau’s story she says that the starting times for high schools has many students still very drowsy and tired most of the time having them nod off during school instruction.She states that in an average high school 20% of students fall asleep in class on a typical day.Therefore, in need to prevent this from happening teens need more sleep as opposed to them not getting enough sleep from either staying up late or period as some experts say.There are many ways to add additional support for teens and their sleep.

Research has shown that teenagers experience a change in their internal sleep clocks so that waking up early and going to sleep early are difficult. I agree with the decision to change school times and what it has to offer. This would not only help the teenagers with many things but also accommodate the parents schedules too. I believe that if the school system were to alter the times so that High Schoolers were to wake up later then it would fix various conflicts; teen depression, lack of awareness, and it allows parents to work later.

Research has shown that teenagers experience a change in the internal sleep clock so that waking up early and going to sleep early are difficult. Some people believe that high school classes should begin later in the day to better accommodate students’ natural sleep clocks. Waking up early can be a real struggle for teenagers. Most teens naturally sleep in until ten thirty or eleven on weekends. I do believe high school classes should start later because teens could sleep more naturally, it would give teenagers more time to do things in the mornings, and more sleep equals better

How many times has this happened to you; it’s six thirty on a Tuesday morning, your alarm has already gone off twice, your still laying in bed and your bus comes in twenty minutes. This is an everyday occurrence at my house. It is a proven statistic that the average high school student does not get enough sleep. While some experts like Dr. Lee Yanku say “It is not the schools starting time that is the problem as to why students don’t get enough sleep, it is because of facebook, myspace and cell phones” The truth behind it is that we can’t budget sports, homework and extracurricular activities into one day and still get nine hours of sleep. This is hurting student’s academic averages and needs to change. Changing the school time will help

In the United States of America, middle and high schools start as early as 7:00 am, requiring teenagers to rise at least at 6:30 in order to make it to class. As a nation, we can only view this as a monstrosity. In this essay, I will be going over three areas of analysis: one, why early start times for middle and high school create situations not in the interest of learning, two, why a later commencement time would have substantial benefits, and three, why said benefits would outweigh the disadvantages.

Each year, exhausted teenagers leave themselves to another day of battling their bodies clocks so they can get in class on time. It's outstanding that teenagers who don't get eight hours of rest a night confronts a large number of issues. That is the reason why both the American Institute of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control recommend shifting middle- and high-school start times to 8:30 a.m or later. However, during 2011-2012 school year, the latest statistics accessible — just 17.7 % of the national public middle, high and combined schools met the 8:30 a.m. rule, and almost 40% began before 8 a.m. In California, the normal start time was 8:07 a.m.

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

High school students should have a later starting time in school due to students not getting the amount of sleep they need to function. Students that stay up late at night are way too tired to learn when they get to school early in the morning. Most students who do stay up late are unable to sleep due to melatonin not yet being produced. This shows that starting school at a later time would have many positive benefits. These benefits include higher test scores, increased attendance, more participation from students, and higher performance from athletes.

After reading both passages, I believe that both authors agreed to the idea of starting high schools later. In the passages "High Schools Starting Later to Help Sleepy Teens "and "High School Will Keep Starting Too Early both implied the fact that teens need a lot of rest. Here's why, they both stated facts on how they believed schools should consider starting earlier. As the first author decided to use facts about why high schoolers should enter later, the second author stated the reasons why high schools could not be delayed. In the first passage the author expressed on how students stay on task more frequently and doze off less if school started later.

In the article “Pediatricians Say School Should Start Later For Teens’ Health” it states,“...... a National Sleep Foundation poll found that 59 percent of middle schoolers and 87 percent of high schoolers are getting less than the recommended 8 ½ to 9 ½ hours of sleep a night. ”(Shute 2). Many people say that school start time is affecting students’ health.

High Schools Need to Let their Kids Sleep Sleep is an important part of life, it allows your body to recharge and rest after a long day of work, play, or even school. Sleep has many health benefits and can make a person healthy and strong. It is important to let a little infant sleep so they can grow and develop properly; however infants isn’t the only age group that need to rest, teenagers need the extra sleeping time. Due to the early start of school, high schoolers do not receive their essential sleep time; this schools should delay the start of their schools so teenagers can develop and receive more health benefits and the country can receive economic benefits. Aaron E. Carroll is a Professor of Pediatrics and an Associate Dean for Research Mentoring.

“Shoutz’ school had to move some extracurricular activities before school because practices were running until 10:30pm due to gym availability.” (Article #2). Moving the school times has caused people to get up even earlier and even stay up later. Moving the school time was supposed to help students sleep more, but some have to stay up later or even wake up earlier than they had to for school, causing them to lose the time they were supposed to have to sleep. In the end, students are just losing more time they they are gaining.

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.

School’s start times have been an arising issue in the United States for many years and recently began to surface. More and more individuals everyday are realizing the effects of a school’s start time on those attending the school, teaching at the school, parents of those who attend the school as well as the surrounding community. “…education seems to be the most sleep-deprived field in America” (Black, 2001). Beginning a school’s start time at 7:17 in the morning isn’t the best time to try and teach adolescents calculus or Shakespeare. “For many, the unusually early start time is nothing short of torturous. A survey of 26 Denver –area companies showed that the average adult trudges into