The Day Dreamers

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.

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

One of the biggest struggles for students today, is the struggle to wake up for school in the mornings, and to make it to class on time. Because of the start times that many high and middle schools currently have, students are having to get up early to get ready, therefore providing them with little sleep at night. They are faced with their everyday schedules, things that are happening in other parts of their lives, as well as having to keep up with their schoolwork. All of this results in a loss of sleep, with the added factor of having to wake up early in the mornings. Having a later start time for schools is beneficial for student’s health, safety, and their overall performance in school.

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.

This article by the National Sleep Foundation describes how adolescents today are not getting the recommended amount of sleep and in return do not perform appropriately or at their maximum level at school. Through different scientific studies it was discovered that adolescent NATURALLY fall asleep at 11 P.M. or later. One study looked at the melatonin secretion in patients and how it occurred later at night in adolescents. Through research the National Sleep Foundation has urged schools to synchronize school clock with student body clocks (If teens naturally fall asleep at 11 P.M. and require 9.5 hours of sleep, school should start approximately at 9:00-10:00 A.M., 1 to 3 hours after current SC school start times). This sources supports my claim to start school later and provides support research about the negative aspects of sleep deprivation in adolescents and the importance of reforming school start times

School start times play a very big role in a student’s overall development, especially when they aren’t getting enough sleep because of it. An important factor to consider for a student’s development is the act of sleeping; that a lack of it can cause serious problems to the students’ growing body. According to research done with Brown University’s Julie Boergers, the author of the letter “Benefits of later school start times”, the amount of sleep that adolescents need ranges from 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep. Only 17 percent of these students

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

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.

Students are not getting enough sleep. There is either homework or after school activities keeping kids from getting the right amount of sleep they need. The author states that, most kids are going to bed at 10 p.m. or later on school nights, even though they have to get up early the next day. Changes can be made at school to adjust to students’ sleep patterns. Some ways schools can adjust to students’ sleep patterns is shifting the time to start later, giving less homework or less after school programs, schools could also end sooner.

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

Across America school starts on average, at eight o’clock in the morning. When walking through school hallways full of kids on a typical school morning, one may see sleep deprived and tired students not looking forward to their early morning classes, waiting for the bell to ring to signal them to go to class. Students brains are not at their full potential at eight o’clock in the morning because the brain is not yet fully awake. Starting school at eight o’clock is too early for students’ minds. David A. Sousa confirms, “Teenagers are not getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation affects their ability to store information, increases irritability, and leads to fatigue, which can cause accidents” (Sousa 117). Starting school

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

Almost every day high school students are waking up around six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school, some even earlier than that. Nearly every morning students are waking up without adequate sleep. If sleep is one of the most essential needs of the body in order to grow and develop, shouldn’t we be more aware of how much it affects students everyday performance? The ways in which students are affected by sleep-deprivation is precisely why school needs to start later.

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