Should high schools begin at a later time? Why does high school start so early? I would Google these questions almost every morning when I woke up for school. The alarm would scream sharply at 5:45 in the morning often after only being graced with a couple hours of slumber. Then, after maybe forcefully slamming down on the snooze button once or twice, I’d leave my warm comfy bed and open the curtains to view the lovely pitch black sky and think of how wonderful it would be if I could have gotten maybe just one more hour of sleep. And maybe if school started just an hour later, that extra hour of sleep would have been possible.
It’s no secret that high school students are overwhelmingly sleep deprived. The National Sleep Foundation discovered that 60% of students under the age of 18 have complained about feeling tired during the day, and 15% have fallen asleep in their classes. This isn’t a matter of laziness or a lack of caring about education -- it’s biological. Researchers state that teenagers are naturally programmed to stay up late in the night and wake up late in the morning. When many high schools open their doors at 7 o’clock in the morning, students are literally fighting against their biological makeup.
The CDC, National Sleep Foundation, and various other sleep scientists are urging policymakers to make high school start times later. If high school started later, students would be more likely to obtain the 8 to 10 hours of sleep they require. If students aren’t chronically sleep deprived, then they will be able to put their full attention on their education and learn to the best of their ability. The more sleep students receive, the healthier they will be both physically and mentally.
More and more high schools across the country are beginning to adapt later start times and have seen more than positive results, including better attendance, a boost in grades, and higher standardized test scores. School starting later in the morning led to a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse, depressive symptoms, and teen car crashes.
With all these benefits, what exactly is preventing more high schools to change their clocks? There are numerous reasons why people don’t want high school start times to become any later. Many schools rely on local bussing companies to bring students to school and lack the resources to change it. Often the bus companies are responsible for transporting both elementary, middle, and high school students to school and are unable to change their times. Other disapproving voices claim that extracurriculars and sports will be negatively impacted by a later school start time. However, many students are already up late at night with extracurriculars and sports even with an early start time.
Many of these reasons seem trivial when compared to the issue of students’ mental and physical health. When students are walking into homeroom comparing how little sleep they got last night, there’s a problem, and it’s time for it to be fixed. If starting school at a later time is a possible solution with proven benefits, it’s definitely worth a shot.
