Why High School Should Start Later

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

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

Teenagers need more sleep. If schools start school later, students would be less tired. A study of eight schools in Minnesota started school 1 hour later and grades and morale went up and tardiness went down. It has been scientifically proven in a test they did in Minnesota that 8 schools stated later and most of the students grades went up they were happier and everyone seemed more

Typically, people enjoy receiving an extra hour of sleep, even an extra five minutes of sleep. Teens are just one group of people who enjoy sleep. Unfortunately, teens are unable to obtain the correct number of hours per night. Later school start times would be beneficial because the schools would see an impact on attendance, increased school performance, and based on several studies, students would receive the recommended amount of sleep. The psychological effects would greatly outweigh the negative effects caused by an early start time. Benefits of a later start time include, better health, improved grades and teens reaching the recommended amount of sleep per night. Downfalls of starting school later would be transportation issues, coddling

Early school start times prevent many students and teachers from getting a full nine hours of sleep per night. Some people say that waking up early will help prepare them for later in life; however, this is actually hurting them because of the likelihood of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and many other impacts to students health. Schools should begin later in the morning because it will improve grades, student-athletes that participate in school , and the overall health of the students and teachers.​ Starting school later in the day will increase the overall health and productivity of a student. Students could develop serious mental health issues and diseases which would ruin them and those around them. The following excerpt is from the book The Promise of Sleep written by William Dement and

School's starting at 7:30 a.m. is an appropriate time, but having school start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. can be a lot more beneficial to students. School starting early in the morning can cause many harmful things to teenagers. Getting little to no sleep causes teenagers to be more forgetful and it limits their ability to learn. It can also lead to depression, aggressive behavior, obesity, drug and alcohol use, and sleep deprivation. Research shows that a later start time is generally a little more effective for students. Having Central Valley High School start at a later time would provide many positive outcomes to better adolescent's school work, safety, and their overall health.

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.

Still, advocates [those in favor] say studies show the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. In 1996, high school

In the articles of “High schools starting later to help sleepy teens”, claim is that school

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.

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.

First, school times should be pushed back to later start times because students will not be sleep deprived. Many teenagers are not getting enough sleep and this is due to early school start times. A National Sleep Foundation Poll reported 28% of teenagers fall asleep at least once a week during first hour of school due to their lack of sleep. This means that

Who does not like a little extra sleep? No one really loves waking up early, especially for school. Many teens fall asleep in class, complain about being tried and never getting enough sleep. A few will not even show up to school because they are so exhausted. But by looking at school start times, a teens natural sleep cycle, and the effects it has on the teens, maybe schools should start later in the day.

Schools that start before 8 a.m. are a major reason students aren’t getting adequate sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation teenagers need on average 8 ½ - 9 ½ hours of sleep a night(Schute, Nancy). Realistically students rarely get that much sleep. When students don’t get adequate sleep it has the ability to affect their attention span, memory, problem-solving ability, and mood(Rosenberg, Russell). Are these students actually expected to pay attention, learn, solve problems, and have an acceptable attitude when they wake up sleep deprived? With a sleep cycle that changes once students hit puberty and an increase in the production of melatonin its nearly impossible for teens to fall asleep before 10:30 p.m.(Edwards, Finley). In my own experience I don’t even get tired until around 11:30 p.m. and barely fall asleep before 12, so it makes it extremely difficult to wake up at 6 a.m. and get ready for the day.

We live in an age when many growing adolescents are constantly fighting their natural body clocks. It could potentially be one of the biggest issues facing our high school systems. Many school’s across America have started to push back their school start times. Is it worth it? The answer is yes. School should start later in order to unlock our nation’s high school potential.