High School Start Time Essay

Starting high school later in the day would be beneficial for high school students. One positive example for a later start time is, “Nauset Regional High School on Cape Cod, which pushed its start time to 8:35 am four years ago. They saw tardiness fall by 35 percent and the number of D's and F's drop by half" (Vaznis). That is a notable difference. There are many other beneficial reasons to start high school at 8-8:30. Benefits include an increase of sleep, which leads to better overall student health and performance and improves the student’s academic, social and emotional needs.
A growing student, according to researchers, needs 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep. Sleep is essential at this age. Students are recommended to sleep roughly 9 hours and start the day with a healthy breakfast. Which, when I was a high schooler two years ago, was very difficult to achieve. I was a student-athlete and worked part time. On an average school weekday, I started my day at 6:30 am, school started at 7:35 am and I would get home at 9:15 pm. About 14 hours a day, I was away from home, working in some form. I would
Most teenagers are student athletes and/or have jobs, which can determine where 15+ hours a week are spent. In addition to a weekly 6+ hours of studying and homework. Along with other extracurricular and time spent with family. Some say kids would just be staying up longer and goofing off, well they are wrong. Having that extra hour, students would have time to relax and would not feel as rushed and stressed to accomplish everything they have to do. Another argument against having schools start later is the lack of time for after school programs. However, school starting an hour later will not cause that many problems because the school day would end before four. The only problem occurring is less of a break between school, sports, and other after-school