Later School Start Times Essay Example
Is it time for school start times to change? Most teens and parents would say yes, they agree that teens are up too early and that starting school later would be beneficial to teens' health and academic performance. Teens all over the country are sleep deprived, they stay up as late as 11 doing homework or trying to fall asleep and then must wake up as early as 6 to catch the bus or make it to school on time. This is a severe problem that we need to solve, school start times need to start later to better teens' lives. And to help them live healthier and happier. Our school should have a later start time because sleeping in later would benefit teens health and their academic performance would improve.
Later School Start times will improve students' health. According to “Adolescents’ Sleep Behaviors and Perceptions of Sleep,” “Most adolescents become tired and go to bed at 11 P.M. or later. Because most adolescents must rise between 6:00 and 6:30 A.M. to prepare for school, they are getting approximately 7 hours of sleep on school nights.” (1) Most students need about 9 hours of sleep but because of their circadian clock they don’t go to bed early enough to get the right amount. Pushing the school start time back would help them go to bed once they felt tired but would allow them to sleep in more, thus increasing their amount of sleep. By starting school later, we are also lowering the risk of obesity. The article states, “Another consequence of inadequate sleep time is greater risk of obesity. (16-19) For example, 1 study of youths aged 10-17 compared 60 overweight youths with matched control youths who were not overweight and found that being overweight was significantly associated with shorter sleep durations.” If we allow students to sleep in more, we are lowering obesity risks and improving students’ health.
Getting more sleep would improve students' academic performance. According to, “The Effects of Sleep on Academic Performance and Job Performance” their study showed that “103 studies related to sleep loss, learning capacity, and academic performance; samples included students of different education levels, from elementary school to university. Most (31 out of 37) studies involved elementary or high school students. The researchers concluded that sleep loss was negatively correlated with academic performance.” (9) By getting more sleep we can raise students' academic performance which would help them to be more successful later in life. The article also says, “Academic performance was measured using mean GPA and collected data were analyzed using Spearman's correlation analysis and stepwise regression analysis. The researchers found significant relationships between lower GPA and sleep-related variables.” (10) and “Based on self-reported sleep length, participants were divided into three groups: short sleepers (6 or fewer hours in a 24-hour period), average sleepers (7-8 hours in a 24-hour period), and long sleepers (9 or more hours in a 24-hour period). The researchers found that the mean GPA of short sleepers was 0.5 points lower than that of long sleepers (2.74 and 3.24, respectively).” This proves that sleep and academics have a direct correlation and by pushing back school start times we can help improve students school performance.
Although some will say that pushing school start times back will disrupt after school sports and activities. Even if this is true, it’s not worth sacrificing students' health over a game. Even so, activities can simply be pushed back or just end later based on students' schedules. Not changing start times simply isn’t worth putting students' health and academic performance at risk. Students will benefit more from a later start time than they would an earlier start time.
To sum up, we can see that teenagers would greatly benefit from a later school start time. They would be better rested, excel more at school, and have a lower risk of obesity. They would all around live happier and healthier lives. If pushing the school start time back means healthier teens, I believe we should take the step to ensure that teens have good childhoods.
