Why School Should Start Later

Everyone has always hated getting up super early to go to school. As children get older they move to different schools, from elementary to middle to high school, and the start times get earlier. In elementary school it was never a problem getting up but getting older, it always got harder to get up and the days were always longer. Schools start so early in the morning that it is hard to focus and students tend to miss more of their earlier classes and attend all of their later classes. Schools everywhere should start later because it would benefit the students and teachers.

Beep-Beep-Beep. The loud shrill of your alarm wakes you up from your deep sleep. Have you ever wanted school to start later? Maybe all you wanted was to just fall back to sleep. School districts have been looking at pushing school start times for older students who could get extra sleep for a long time. There have even had studies conducted to find the benefits of a later start. But have they looked at the consequences? School start times should stay the same.

School should start later. Waking up at six in the morning to get ready for school really makes kids mad. They have to go through the rest of their day doing work when they feel tired and just want to go back to bed. But what if they didn’t have to wake up that early because school started later? Why do school start at 8 in the morning? All it does is make kids not want to be there. A lot of people say that school should start later. Later starting would mean that kids get enough sleep, they

How would you feel if your parent couldn’t take you to school or drive you to the bus because schools starts after they would already need to be at work? How would you like if practices or outside actives were cut short due to school start time? Schools began starting earlier in the 1990s. The average time schools start is 8:03 am. Only 17.7% of 39,700 public middle and high schools start at 8:30 am or later. I believe that the earlier start time is an advantage. With schools being a big advantage to help us plan for life, we need to make sure we use this precious time to learn. If school would start later there would be less time for outside activities and practices, your parent mostly likely couldn’t help you get ready in the morning and drive you to school because they would already be at work, and truly if school starts later, then most people would go to bed later.

There has always been a controversy as to if the school day should start later on in the morning or not. The University of Minnesota study shows that schools who have already changed the beginning of the school day to later have found that only a third of students actually received eight or more hours of sleep while the students who received less than eight hours reported to have more symptoms of depression, higher counts of caffeine, and substance abuse with alcohol and drugs. In “Should the School Day Start Later?” written by Michael Gonchar, Gonchar writes that, “New evidence suggests that a later start to the school day could have all sorts of benefits…” Some of those benefits could include the decrease of tardiness, increase in attendance, test scores and everyday grades, more positive mental health, and even car crash rates. All in all the research and studies over if the school day should start later has been in discussion for years.

School start times should be later because school times should revolve around the student’s best ability to learn. When America started public schools, they had the same time frame, around seven to three. They did this so the farmers would have time to go and work in the afternoon. Well, needless to say we still have the same schedule now, with a much different industry and way of life. There are countless reasons schools should start later and countless studies that prove school should start later. I think some of the more important reasons include, a teen’s biological clock that makes their brain want to go to bed and get up late, car crashes caused by sleep deprivation and more sleep increasing concentration, alertness and a better attitude in class

When I went to high school, class would start every day at 7:45 am which would require me to get up at about 6 am every morning. As a result of that, I would go to school feeling restless, exhausted, and I cared more about getting through the day more than actually learning in class. This lead me on to feeling poorly almost every day and made it difficult to balance catching up on sleep and getting my school work done. If you were a teen once you might be familiar with this struggle. Even though this a reality that most teens including myself have faced, it has been discovered that it has more negative effects than you might think. Not everyone would agree, but I believe if school start times were later, it would highly benefit the students academically.

Parents and teachers constantly tell students that they should concentrate on school and homework, but how can they do so when they cannot focus? Most of the time this lack of focus is caused by sleep deprivation which is induced by school activities and work, both of which cannot be avoided. Schools expect students to wake up early, be lectured for 8 hours, and then stay up late with sports, music, and/or homework. These tired students with large workloads have risks to their bodies and minds. Allowing schools to start later would be beneficial to students’ health, safety, and academic performance.

For years parents have been fighting with their children, trying to wake them up in time for school. Teenagers seem to want nothing more than just a few more extra hours, or even minutes, of sleep in the morning. And many people claim that teens are just lazy and all they need to do is sleep earlier and it will be much easier for them to get up in the morning. But a better solution may be for school times to simply start later for High School students. Not only will students be gaining more sleep, but that will also help them with school and the other important parts of their lives.

You Are asleep, in the blissful backwater of your head. You swirl among your dreams, when all of a sudden, screeching. a never ending cacophony. It's your alarm, and it time for school. We have all experienced this at least once before. And we've all hated it. But maybe there's a reason we hate it. It's not good for us. Especially with teenagers requiring so much sleep its imperative that school as a whole start later in the day, and by moving it later it would improve the mental abilities and heath of modern teens.

Do you ever feel like you are waking up too early in the morning, or not getting enough sleep? This article will be talking about whether school should start later or not. Sometimes people fall asleep in class or don’t do so well on test. This is mostly caused by not getting enough sleep at night. Some would argue that schools shouldn’t start later and kids should just go to bed earlier.

Have you once gone to school exhausted and wanted to sleep through the whole school day? How much sleep do you get each night during the school year? Have you ever wished for school to start later into the day, instead of it starting in the morning? In schools, most students aren’t energized and ready for the school day, all because of the early school start times. I think that school should start later because teenage students get tired faster than some people in younger and older age groups, they would be energized and ready to learn, and they could learn without their health at risk.

According to Jane Bianchi,the author of “The Teen Who Woke Up Her School”, “After a good night's rest, you're more alert, and it's easier to solve problems, process and remember information, and be creative. Research has also linked sleep to higher test scores.” They did a study and found that the students that were well rested were more likely to perform better. According to Jan Hoffman, “They found that the later a school's start time, the better off students were on measures like mental health, car crash rates, attendance, and, in some schools, grades and standardized test scores.” They did a study and found positive results when the students got enough sleep. Also according to, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “A later start to the school day could help boost students’ academic performance and reduce tardiness and absenteeism.” This means that having a later start time to schools would be good for the students because the schools would have better attendance. So, if the schools start later, they would have those positive

Many students drag themselves out of bed during the school year to get to school on time only to fall asleep during their first block class. Teachers often find themselves raising their voices to get the students to wake up during their class. Many people may assume that these teenagers are lazy or have a bad attitude. In fact, these students are sleep deprived. Today American schools start at a very early hour based on a system in place during the 1800s to allow farm students to go to school and get home in time to work on the family farm. For most American students, this is no longer the case and school systems should start at a later time. I believe school should start later than nine o’clock because it helps students get the sleep they need and to stay focused.

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.