The High School Bell Rings

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.

It is a well known fact that teenagers in general need more sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation: “[teenage sleep] is as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage stress of being a teen.” When schools start as early as 7 o’clock, it puts students health at risk. Adolescents already have a natural shift in their internal body clock, or circadian rhythm when it comes to sleep. Puberty allows this to happen, causing a “sleep phase delay” of about two hours. When teens can't fall asleep until late and school starts so early, they aren't getting nearly enough sleep. Lack of such, according to CDC, makes the individual

Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity. Sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Teens are among those least likely to get enough sleep; while they need on average 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night for optimal performance and health and brain development, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night, and most report feeling tired during the day (Nationwide Childrens, 2003). The root of the problem is early school start times.

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.

Traditional school schedules affect students sleep patterns by forcing them to wake up early when their body wants to sleep, which leads to sleep deprivation (wol.iza.org). Again, sleep deprivation can lead to lots of negative mental and physical health issues. Npr.org says, “Teenagers are getting six to seven hours of sleep a night, and they need eight to ten.” Because most students do not become tired until around eleven or midnight, they are unable to get the right amount of sleep because the school start times are so early (wol.iza.org).

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

Assuming by the time teenagers start high school they will have around three hours of homework each night. Most high schoolers will not start their homework right as they get home, they will take a much-needed break and relax for a few hours, meaning they would not start their homework until 8:00PM. The homework is not very easy, forcing them to spend even longer on their homework and they are awake until midnight trying to figure out how to calculate the mass of Saturn.For instance, during the school week most students would be going to bed at 11:32 PM and wake up at 7:20 allowing them to get 7 hours and 48 minutes opposed to weekends where they would fall asleep at 12:56 and wake up at 10:36 getting 9 hours a 40 minutes of needed sleep (Wahlstrom). The amount of sleep they are getting on the weekdays is not sufficient to promote healthy growth. It is important for everyone to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night to be able to function properly. With a lack of sleep comes a risk of medical

School districts expect us to wake up half an hour after the crack of dawn, go to school and while groggy and sleep deprived, and still expect us to surrender our full attention in each and every one of our 6 periods. Sending sleep-deprived teenagers to school as early as 5:30 is dangerously unhealthy, unsafe, and evidently counterproductive. According to the American Academy ofPediatrics, without receiving the appropriate amount of sleep teenagers find it 60% harder to focus in class. Lack of sleep can lead to excessive fatigue, emotional distress, laziness, obesity and a lowered perception of quality of

Starting this year, Decatur High School switched their block scheduling to an eight-period schedule. While this allows students to learn from each class every day, it also weighs them down with extra daily stress that would not come from the block schedule. Now that the school has eight class periods every single day, students have more homework and less time to do it. With only forty-five minutes per a class period, even teachers complain there is not enough time for them to meet their daily teaching criteria, resulting in more homework for the students and less time to learn the material for the homework. Being a teenager is already stressful, and, with the addition of school and extra curricular activities, it becomes a nuclear bomb of stress. Furthermore, it is recommended by doctors for students to get the standard “9 hours of sleep” at night, however, most students at Decatur High School would prove that teens regularly get only four to six hours of sleep and sometimes even less. The reason being, with after school activities which usually end around 8:00 PM, dinner, and maybe a shower, they’re starting on homework around 9:00 to 10:00 PM. Students who are in advanced courses may spend about 2-4 hours on homework, depending on the subject. That likely puts them to bed around midnight to 2:00 AM. When asking students who are taking advanced courses, most would agree that they have more homework this year, resulting in less sleep. With less sleep and more work,

When school starts so early, students just aren’t getting enough sleep. Doctors recommend teens get between 8.5 and 9.5 hours of sleep each night and with all the after-school activities, homework and early school start times, they are not getting that. Less than a third of high school students get 8 hours of sleep on school nights. As children get older, it’s harder for them to fall asleep at night, causing them to go to bed late and when they have to get up early to go to school, they are not getting nearly enough sleep. Studies shows children that do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, perform poorly in school and

However there was a positive correlation with success and sleep (Suskind). Homework can get in the way of activities that lead to better success. If the homework load is lessened, kids can have more time to sleep, which is very important to a child’s and teenager's development. Many health issues occur when students do not get enough sleep. The Medical Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School published a research article that states a lack of sleep aids in the development of diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.(Sleep and Disease Risk)The article shows that students need sleep, and with the balancing of school, activities, and home it cuts into time for sleep. With the sleep deprivation and a large workload students are very prone to health issues and stress.

Teen sleep deprivation is a major problem infecting this country, and it continues to spread as high schools open their doors at earlier hours. If America wants to raise a generation of healthy, successful, and well educated young adults, then high schools must join the fight against teen sleep deprivation and open their doors at later, more reasonable hours.

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

Teens are so full of potential, so full of life, and so…..sleepy. Research shows that teens do not get the sleep they need on a regular basis. Because of the shift in body clocks, after puberty, it takes longer for teens to go to sleep. This resulting sleep deprivation can produce mood swings, substance abuse such as NyQuil, and immune disorders, as well as busy schedules, exams, and active social lives on top of all this an earlier high school starting times this makes teens suffer from sleep deprivation as well as other health and academic problems (Cline). Teens suffering from fatigue often can’t pay attention

Teenagers face so much pressure on a day to day basis. They wake up really early in the morning to get ready for seven hours of school. They come home, have to do homework and study for hours, and then, most teenagers have after school activities. This unables teenagers to get the right amount of sleep they need. With their life revolving around school they are very stressed, and a lot of teens suffer from depression and anxiety disorders. These disorders could be because teens do not get enough sleep, and have a lot of pressure at school, because they do not have enough time after school to finish homework, and they want to have a life besides school, and have time to spend time with their families, and friends.