High School Start Times

Abstract

The debate of what time should high school start has been at large over the past couple decades. Some schools are willing to try the later start time and some are not. Research and studies of schools that start later have proven many positive opportunities for high school students. The later start times will help reduce the risk of sleep deprivation, depression, and other health concerns amongst teens. It will also help reduce absences, increase their school performance, and allow students to get the recommended amount of sleep that their bodies need.

My sources include case studies of schools that have tried the later time and research of teenager sleep patterns. As children get older their school time starts earlier every few years. Elementary school’s average a start time around 9:45 a. m. , middle school at 8:00 a. m. , and high school at 7:30 a. m. However, as children get older they usually stay up later because if technology and their bodies being capable of staying awake longer resulting in a lesser amount of sleep than is required.

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With delaying the start time for high school students there is the opportunity to improve grades, reduce the risk of depression, and reduce the risk of sleep deprivation. The issue of school start times has been moiled over for many years now. Schools that have always started early may be skeptical to switching their start time even though research has proved that later start times can be beneficial to the students. Once schools try a later start time for a period of time many keep it because it has so many positive opportunities for the high school students.

The later start time not only has proved positive amongst the students, but also among the parents. One study conducted in the Minneapolis School district surveyed and found that, after one year, 92% of parents indicated that they preferred the later start times (2004). Many people are skeptical at first of the switch but if you look at the research and studies done, it is obvious that the benefits far outweigh the negatives of a later start time. As stated, when children get older they tend to stay awake longer however they do not understand that they are at risk of sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is an overall lack of the necessary amount of sleep. When kids have sleep deprivation they have symptoms that include but are not limited to impairments in mood, attention and memory, behavior control, quality of life, lower academic performances and decreased motivation to learn (2010). Children don’t understand the results of staying up the extra hour to watch a television show or play a video game. The effects are potentially much worse than just everyday mood and academic performance. Sleep deprivation can also cause kids to become unhealthier.

This results in an increased risk of weight gain, lack of exercise, and lack of stimulants. Overall, sleep deprivation could cause children to potentially ruin their school career which could affect their future chances of getting into college. The easy argument to avoid sleep deprivation is to make kids go to bed earlier. However, today children have more video games, televisions, and phones in their bedrooms than prior years making it much harder for kids to go to sleep once in their room. The average teenager will stay up for an additional hour every night causing them to lose a total of one night’s sleep over a period of a week (2012).

Telling your children to go to bed earlier and even making them get into their beds won’t force them to go to sleep due to modern technology. Also, studies on adolescent sleep patterns show that for biological reasons, teenagers generally cannot go to sleep earlier than 11 p. m. (1999). This also makes it quite difficult for teens to get in bed early enough to sleep the required amount for optimal health and wellness, which is between 8 to 10 hours, especially when the students have to wake up and be at school so early.

By pushing school back an hour would allow students to have a better chance of decreasing their chance of getting sleep deprivation. Starting an hour or two later than the average start time would allow high school students to get a full night sleep, thus affecting their overall performance in school and enabling them to make better grades. Evidence has shown that adequate sleep improves performance on a variety of tests of memory, concentration, problem solving and attention, as well as reducing depression and irritability (2004).

When allowing children to have a full night sleep it sets them up for future endeavors and is more realistic of a schedule compared to the average adult having a nine to five job. This would be an ideal way to get them in a routine for life outside of school and provide ample opportunity to do better in school. When making the change from starting school from the original start time to an hour later there would be several changes a family could have to make to their everyday schedule.

While kids who have the opportunity to take the bus to school should not be inconvenienced by the time change it would affect those who live outside the school district. For these children who have to get a ride to school every day may need to find an alternate mode of transportation due to their parents work schedule. Also parents with non-regular schedules may have to find alternative modes of transportation for their kids. This could also become an inconvenience if there are no friends or family available to help to transport.

Changing the start time may become a hassle for the parents and making it almost impossible to get their kids to school on time. While most kids do well in school, generally it is those who study harder that have the better grades. While studying harder could be an answer to getting better grades, as it has been proven, studying harder won’t make kids focus and concentrate better in school. If students could take in more information during class, it would result in a better understanding of school lessons and conclude to a better academic performance.

Being late to the first class of the day or even missing it completely is something that occurs frequently amongst high school students. Missing that first class can hurt a child’s grade and GPA which is very important during high school. Starting school later, even a half hour later, will allow students an adequate amount of time to get themselves ready and be at school on time. Teachers from a Rhode Island school who tried the later school time reported a 36% decrease in absences or tardiness for the first class of the day (2010).

Dr. Robert Vorona said “Beyond the impact on driving, early start times probably affect other areas calling for research on how they affect teenagers’ moods, tardiness, and academic performance (Holohan, 2013). ” Many studies and researchers have proved that having early school start times increases the amount of absences and tardiness amongst the students. Thus by delaying the start time will reduce the number of students tardy or absent and also allow them to have a better chance of passing their early morning classes.

Some people might think that being absent or late is the fault of the student or their parent. They may think that students should still be able to wake up and get to school on time even with an early school time. Many factors play into this though. Students could have fallen asleep late making it difficult to wake up, missed their alarm, or even missed the bus because of waking up late. Some students have parents who are already at work when they wake up to get ready in the morning. Not having a parent at home in the morning can be ough on a child and make it difficult for them to get out of bed. This makes it very easy for a child to sleep in and miss class. It is easy to say that students should get to school on time but there are many different factors that go into a morning routine that allow, or don’t allow, students to make it to school on time. During high school, students are more likely to experience some type of depression due to relationships, athletics, schoolwork, etc. A major contributor to depression would be having a lack of sleep.

A school in Providence Rhode Island tested students when they started school at 8:00 and when they started at 8:30. They found that by having an extra half hour of sleep the number of students that had depression decreased a significant amount from 66% to 45%. Judy Owens, who conducted the study, stated “A modest start time delay was associated with a significant increase in self-reported sleep duration and a decrease in a number of daytime sleepiness. Perhaps more importantly, students rated themselves as less depressed and more motivated to participate in a variety of activities” (2010).

Depression can weigh a kid down and not allow them to do well in school. It is important for high school students to get their sleep because about 50% of high school students can drive. A study was done between two high schools that had an hour and twenty minute difference in start time. The school that started later had 41% less crashes than the school that started earlier. The researchers concluded that the students from the school which started earlier were sleep deprived and resulted in them driving more recklessly than the students who started school later.

When looking at driving compared to sleep it becomes a more serious issue and this is because there are other people’s lives at risk other than the person who is sleep deprived. Not only does this issue of school start time greatly influence a student’s education but more importantly it plays a factor in their physical wellbeing as they drive to school each morning. A small private high school in Providence, Rhode Island conducted a pilot study that confirms many of the benefits of delayed school start times. A study conducted by Judy Owens, MD, a sleep expert with Hasbro Children’s Hospital had the school delay their normal start time, 8 a. . , to a new start time of 8:30 a. m. The study also had students, with parent permission, participate in an e-mail survey that would help to measure the sleep patterns and behaviors of the students. The study showed that students across all grades (9 to 12) had an average increase of 45 minutes of sleep per night. It also showed significant decreases in the students who felt that they “rarely/never” got enough sleep, which was 69% to 34%, and significant decreases in the students who felt that they “never” were satisfied with their sleep, which was 37% to 9%.

The study also found other health related issues and how a later start time can decrease those problems. The school had a significant decrease from 66% to 45% of students who felt depressed. The health center at the school reported a drop from 15% to 5% of fatigued-related complaints and a 56% decrease in requests for “rest passes. ” The teachers also reported that there was a 36% reduction in absences or tardiness for the first class of the day. This Rhode Island study is one of many that have found many benefits to a later school start time for high school students (2010).

If you agree that school start times should be later then you can, and should, get involved. There is a website call Start School Later (www. startschoollater. net) that is all about how to get schools to start later and why they should start later. Their mission is “Start School Later is a coalition of health professionals, sleep scientists, educators, parents, students, and other concerned citizens dedicated to increasing public awareness about the relationship between sleep and school hours and to ensuring school start times compatible with health, safety, education, and equity. They have an immediate goal of trying to present our national petition to legislate a minimum earliest start time to decision-makers in Washington, DC. The Start School Later group also has four long term goals: Advocate for legislation to ensure evidence-based school hours at the national, state and local level. Provide support and guidance to local communities working for later school start times. Serve as an information clearinghouse by collecting and consolidating information and data about school start times and efforts to change them.

Build public understanding about the relationship between sleep, school start times, and physical, psychological, and educational well-being. To get involved with the Start School Later campaign, go to their website and sign the petition or donate to the cause. If you would like to become more knowledgeable about the effects of school start times on students and how later times are beneficial, you may also visit their page and read facts and statistics that researchers have found and read success stories of schools that have already started their schools at a later time.

There are many positive opportunities that can occur from starting school later. Students have the opportunities to improve their grades, reduce their risk of depression, reduce their risk of sleep deprivation, and many other positive outcomes that will be a result of the extra amount of sleep students may get because of the later school start time. Many schools have switched to a later start time and have found many benefits for the students because of it. If this growing number of schools have already pushed back their start times and experienced the numerous benefits from it, then why hasn’t this become a standard on a national level yet?

References

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