Starting School Later Advantages

Do you have early morning classes or work commitments that require you to be awake and alert prior to 7:00 a.m.? Do you continuously feel tired, moody, or find yourself dozing off during your classes? If so, you are not alone. Researchers have proven that young adults, specifically the ones between the ages of fourteen and their early twenties, can benefit immensely from starting their day later. Starting school later will allow students to get more sleep, result in higher performing students with better grades, and increase their alertness in class. This information can have a significant impact on you and your kids, affecting everything from school grades to health and even one’s life. First, having the school day start later will allow
The results showed that early school start times negatively affect student achievement. Students that were randomly assigned to a first period course earned lower overall grades compared to students who are not assigned to a first period class (Carrell et al). There was a school in Toronto, Canada, Eastern High School that did an experiment in 2009. The experiment consisted of a later start time in school by six minutes. Six minutes later doesn’t sound like much, however, the results were impressive. The school reported back that that the eleventh grade math failure rates had dropped from 40 percent to 14 percent. Wayne Erdman, who taught in the Canadian school districts, commented that the difference was “like night and day,” even though it was the same course and the same student mix (Crawford). There was another study done in Wake County, North Carolina that realized later school start times will result in higher scores on standardized test. The study found that delaying school start tomes by one hour, from roughly 7:30 to 8:30, increases standardized test scores by at least 2 percentile points in math and 1 percentile point in reading (Edwards). Depending on the level of school, should also determine the start time of school, however, the earlier start times (before
Postponing school start time also increases a student’s overall mood. One of the most prominent teen sleep studies in history started in Minnesota in the mid-1990s. Minneapolis high schools shifted start times from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and the nearby suburb of Edina shifted from 7:25 a.m. to 8:35 a.m. Regardless of the fact that the two districts differ greatly in terms of race, socioeconomics, and other factors, positive results in both districts appeared instantly (Sohn). During the first two periods of when school started, it was reported that students were much happier and more alert. Students reported that they felt less depressed. They were raising their hands instead of falling asleep in class. Parents that were interviewed during the study said that their kids seemed to be content overall. Another study that had similar results took place in 2010 in St. George’s High School in Providence, RI. That study had also delayed their start time of school by thirty minutes, to 8:30 a.m. In order for this study to be conducted, students had to take a pre and post study survey. The study found that the percent of student who rated themselves as unhappy or depressed went down significantly from 66 percent before the study to 45 percent after the study. The amount of student that said they rarelt got enough sleep dropped form 69 percent to 33 percent. And, the numver