School Start Times

Syniya Lyle

Period 1

April 9, 2015

Should schools start later? There has been much speculation on the effect of sleep habits on academic performace. Many parents have pushed for later start times, with limited success. In a recent report, the American Academy of Pediatrics supports pushing back start times for older kids, particularly teens, because it’s better for their mental and physical health.

  To begin, during puberty teens begin a biological shift in their sleep patterns. Which means they go to sleep later and they wake up later. As children become teenagers, their sleep-wake cycles shift two hours later, making it difficult to go to sleep before 10:30 PM. As a result, a National Sleep Foundation poll found that 59 percent of middle schoolers and 87 percent of high schoolers are getting less than the recommended 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep a night. 40% of high schools start 8:00 earlier. Students are extremely stressed in the morning and are rushing to get to school on time. That way they don't have a good breakfast or they don't have time to review their studies and they get to school tired and depressed.

   To continue, not getting enough sleep can have many consequences. It can limit your ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems. You may even forget important information like names, numbers, your homework, or special events.  Sleep deprivation induces significant reductions in performance and alertness. Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as one and a half hours for just one night could result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32%. As for students that drive, drowsiness and falling asleep at the wheel accounts for over 100,000 car accidents a year.

    Therefore, I believe that school start times should be pushed back to  9:00. Even a half-hour delay, some studies showed, can have dramatic effects on improving children’s health and academic performance. In the 70 school districts involving more than 1,000 schools that have adopted later start times for high school students; teachers, parents and the students themselves are seeing substantial benefits. In one district that pushed back start times by one hour, half of the students reported getting eight or more hours of sleep, compared to 37% who had prior to the shift.