Should School Start Times Be Later

By Rachel Adam, Edited by Harshvir Chahal, Geethi Tarra, Myint Myat Theingi, & Cindy Zhang, Layout by Aathmika Radhachandran, Art by Cal Shin-Koh, & Blogged by Taruni Manam

Yes.

Do you always feel exhausted walking into your first class of the day? Early school start times could be to blame.

According to the CDC, 72.7% of teens are getting an insufficient amount of sleep, with 20% of those teens sleeping less than six hours per night.

Teens are biologically wired to be night owls, falling asleep later and waking up earlier in the morning. School start times disrupt and clash with teens’ natural sleep patterns, forcing them to wake up before sunrise, thus preventing them from getting enough sleep. Due to factors including their bodies’ biology, extracurriculars, and large piles of homework, teens simply can’t fall asleep early enough in order to get eight to nine quality hours of sleep.

Sleep deprivation can cause problems like poor grades, an increased risk of getting into a car accident, an increased likelihood of alcohol and drug usage, an inadequate attention span, and an increased risk of obesity, anxiety, and depression.

As a student who has suffered through the effects of sleep deprivation, there have been many cases in which, during my last class of the day, I would struggle to not fall asleep and stop paying attention because I had slept late the night before trying to complete numerous homework assignments and studying for tests. Even if I didn’t have much schoolwork or other events going on, I didn’t naturally feel tired until around 11pm, and I’d only have around six to seven hours of sleep, instead of the recommended eight to nine. My school’s start time is at 7:30am, which is one of the earliest start times in America. Sometimes, though, we would have a two-hour delay in our start time, due to snow, and I could sleep in later. During the two-hour delay days, I definitely felt more alert and ready to learn. I likely am not the only one to have felt this difference.

In fact, a group of researchers found that one additional hour of sleep increased the probability of graduating high school by 8.6% and college attendance rate by 13.4% (Sabia et al., 2017). Another study found that students’ grades increased by 4.5% one year after introducing a later school start time (Dunster et al., 2018). Additionally, in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement saying that school start times should not be earlier than 8:30am. Yet, only 18% of US high schools have heeded this advice.

Sleep deprivation is turning into a national health crisis amongst today’s teens, causing many to feel burned out trying to balance their social and academic lives. Scientific studies show that later school start times could put an end to this crisis, and the pros of moving school start times far outweigh any cons. The evidence is clear: if we want to bring out the best in Gen Z, we have to ensure that they are as healthy and motivated as they can be, which can be achieved by pushing school start times back and allowing students to get more rest.

No.

Sometimes, you just don’t want to get up in the morning and go to school. Unfortunately, starting school later is no easy fix to this problem.

Most parents/guardians drop off their student(s) at school before they go to work. A later school start time would make it difficult for some parents to make it to work on time. This becomes challenging for younger children who need the supervision of an adult to get ready and be dropped off at school.

If school starts later, that means it has to end later. This can put a strain on extracurricular activities like sports and music that are commonly after school. It leaves less time for students to fulfill their hobbies, which can have a negative impact on their health and ability to complete schoolwork.

A commonly-touted benefit of starting school later is that students will be able to sleep in, preventing sleep deprivation, but that is not the case. How many times have you stayed up on a Friday night just because you don’t have school or work the next day? I have, too many times. Just because we don’t have work to do until later doesn’t mean we will be asleep longer. In fact, this delay actually encourages us to stay up longer.

Overall, starting school later has a negative impact on not just the student, but those around them as well.

References:

CDC: Most Middle and High School Students Don't Get Enough Sleep. APTA. (2018, January 29). https://www.apta.org/news/2018/01/29/cdc-most-middle-and-high-school-students-dont-get-enough-sleep.

Suni, E. (2020, August 5). Sleep for Teenagers. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/teens-and-sleep.

Richter, R. (2015, October 8). Among teens, sleep deprivation an epidemic. Stanford Medicine. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/10/among-teens-sleep-deprivation-an-epidemic.html.

Caesar , J., Lamm, R., Rodriguez, M. C., & Heistad , D. J. (2021, April 10). Changes in school start time have a significant effect in the amount of sleep and reported grade point average of students . American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/219373/2021-school-start-time-AERA.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

By Cal Shin-Koh

By Cal Shin-Koh