Why Schools Should Start School Start In The Day?

“When schools have delayed the start of the school day, communities have seen reduced tardiness, sleeping in class, and car crash rates, as well as improved attendance, graduation rates, and standardized test scores” (School Start Later). There has been much debate whether start times for school should be kept where they are at or if they should be pushed back later. Research says that the teenage brain does not fully wake up till eight a.m. or later. So why don’t school systems make the decision to push back school start times for high school students? Although there are a few benefits to school starting earlier such as family time or an after school job, but the benefits of starting school later are much greater. Public schools should initiate later start times to increase the level of academic achievement, create a more positive attitude toward learning, and reduce the amount of stress on students.

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

However, if schools started later there could be a chance of reducing sleep deprivation in teens. Teens generally need an average of 9 hours per night, yet they receive less than 7 hours of sleep. Today, the major issue adolescents face is chronic sleep. Mary Carskadon’s team found out that students who showed up for morning classes before 7:30 were seriously sleep-deprived, forced their bodies to be awake and run contrary to their internal clocks. In addition, the lack of sleep can cause a student to fall asleep in class. According to a survey done by the CDC, 20-30% of high school students fall asleep in school each day. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that, “School districts should optimize sleep in students and urge high schools and middle schools to aim for start times that allow students the opportunity to achieve optimal levels of sleep to improve physical and mental health.” Also, a major study at the University of Minnesota have shown that the consequences of insufficient sleep are associated with obesity, immune system disruption, smoking, violence, and depression. Consequently, early school start times can result in fewer hours of sleep as students don’t compensate this with earlier

On average high schoolers get about seven to nine hours of sleep,and then have to be up and get to school by seven. But students are never awake or ready to learn, which is why most students are failing their first period. “ Ideally, teenagers faced with early school start times would just go to bed early. However, a voluminous body of research demonstrates that earlier school start times lead teenagers to sleep less. In a recent study in Minnesota, students in schools where classes started at

In conclusion, the school system should allow schools to start later. If this were to go into effect, so many students would succeed in school more. They would not be as tired and could focus so much better. In all, schools starting later would benefit everyone tremendously.

Since it is hard for students to fall asleep early, high schools around the United States that have changed to later start times have seen improvements in students, and not just academically, but in other aspects of a teen’s life too. There are some disadvantages to changing the school start time to a later time, but the advantages outnumber the disadvantages. Due to the fact that teens are not able to fall asleep early because of melatonin and the harm that early start times have on children, makes it clear that high schools should start later in the morning.

A problem that burdens classrooms across the nation is a lack of energy and fatigue. Early start times for school cause students to wake-up early, and the large amounts of homework cause them to stay up late. The lack of sleep affects teenage student worst of all because their developing brains need the most sleep possible. Consequently, students’ grades could begin to suffer because they are not retaining information. “I feel exhausted and unable to learn,” says a student when asked how she feels in her first-hour class. Research states that the average school start time is 8:00. To avoid this dilemma, schools should start classes later, have a study period first-hour in lieu of an actual class, or assign less homework so students can get to bed at a reasonable time.

Schools should start later in the day. Teens also go through stages of sleep that should not be intervened with, and why school starting early can cause health problems. Schools should start later to improve the health and the performance of students, that are teens.

Studies by the National Sleep Foundation have shown that teenagers lose up to two hours of sleep per night during the school year. A big component of sleep loss is a direct result of the early start times for high school. Between after school sports, work, and homework the average teen does not make it to bed before 11p.m. Adolescents then proceed to wake up before 6:30 a.m. to make it to school on time leaving them with an insufficient amount of sleep. Many fatigued teenagers then come to school and easily miss out on learning. School officials have presented a variety of solutions to school boards to increase student alertness during school hours. One reasonable solution that would be an easy fix to the problem is switching high school and elementary schools’ start times to decrease drowsiness of high schoolers in morning classes.

Schools are filled with people each day. Many of these people are tired and have trouble focusing on schoolwork. Why are these students like this? Many of us are like this, just waiting for the time you can stop listening to teachers talk about their subjects. However, we can become more focused. The easiest way is to get more sleep. What can we move out of our busy schedules? Nothing really. So, all schools should start later. I will discuss the effects of a lack of sleep, the solution, and the consequences of the action we take. 1.Teen’s biological clocks cause them to fall asleep and wake up at later times. The American Association of Pediatrics said, “research indicates that the average teenager in today’s society has difficulty falling asleep before 11:00 PM and is best suited to wake at 8:00 AM or later.” and that “most adolescents begin to experience a sleep–wake “phase delay”, manifested as a shift of up to 2 hours relative to sleep– wake cycles in middle childhood.” Simply stated, teenagers fall asleep later and wake up later than they did when they were younger. The National Sleep Foundation said that “...they [adolescents] need 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep.” These show a lack of sleep. If a teenager falls asleep at exactly 11PM, and has to wake up at 7 AM to get ready for school, they will only get 8 hours of sleep, a little below the recommended 8.5 hour minimum. Losing that half hour or so of sleep every night is what is causing us as teenagers to be tired and unfocused during the school day. This is not as uncommon as you might think. The CDC said that approximately 31% of high school students get enough sleep each night. That is 69 out of every 100 of us that don’t sleep enough. This is not it. Other reasons for a lack of sleep include: irregular bedtimes, and use of technology in the evening. We have now learned that most of us aren’t getting enough sleep. Getting enough sleep means teenagers will be healthier. In an article written by the CDC, it said, “Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from depressive symptoms, and engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs.”

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.

When adolescents receive an adequate amount of sleep, their memory improves substantially, leading them to perform better on school assignments such as projects, quizzes, and tests. Furthermore, when youngsters are able to follow their natural sleep clocks, their brains are more likely to understand and comprehend material that is taught to them during class, which will result in them receiving higher grades on assignments. A study conducted at Harvard University showed that adolescents who received at least eight and a half hours of sleep were fifty percent more likely to earn all A’s during the school year than teenagers who only received around six to seven hours of sleep. Therefore, delaying school start times will allow teenagers to show their true academic potential. Even though some people may argue that high school start times do not need to be delayed in order for students to perform well in school, adolescents are more likely to be determined to work hard and obtain better grades when they sleep sufficiently. In addition to the drastic improvement on school performance, students will also be more engaged in their education with later start

The first main point of why we should start school later is because every body learns better when they’re awake. The first reason is that parents have to make sure that their children get enough sleep. This is because schools clearly play an important role in students daily schedules. An evidence that shows this is that “while teenagers are going to bed later, their school start times are often becoming earlier as they advance through middle and high school” (Richmond). This evidence shows how you have to go earlier to school as you grow up and which makes you even more tired because you're not getting enough sleep. The second reason is that students improve in lots of things since they got enough sleep. Shifting the school day later in the morning resulted in a boost in attendance, test scores, and grades in math, english, science, and social studies. An evidence that shows this is that “ schools also saw a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse,

So, the later the starting time of school, the better students will do. Students are more focused and alert when their body is fully awake at school, thus their willingness to learn is higher since they can operate. In “Sleepy Teens: High Schools Should Start Later in the Morning”, Mark Fischetti states, “Hundreds of school districts in the U.S. have experimented with later start times and the academic performance of students has improved across the board. A study released in February that tracked 9,000 high school students in three states showed that grades in science, math, English and social studies all rose when school began at 8:35 or later” (Blogs.ScientificAmerican.com). When school districts have done an experiment to test if there was a beneficial factor of starting schools later, it has been proven. Throughout the nation, these 9,000 high school students, in just three states, have managed to boost their grades when school has begun at 8:35 or later. These pupils have achieved a higher success in math, science, English, and social studies when the school day began at a later time. Thus, this concludes that changing the school time to a later time will be beneficial for the students

Education is an important aspect of any adolescents’ life. High school prepares adolescents for adulthood and provides them with prime information. The most obvious drawback to the typical high school system is how early in the morning it begins. Adolescents are “programmed” in a sense that their bodies begin to produce the melatonin needed for sleep at a much later time than younger children or adults. Without a sufficient amount of sleep, the human brain suffers cognition and memory issues. This is not an ideal prerequisite for learning. Teenagers have growing responsibilities and insufficient amounts of sleep can greatly hinder performance. High schools should consider