Why High School Should Start Later

For most high school students, Monday mornings can be a real drag and some may say it’s like that every morning. Every weekday students are getting up before 6 a.m. so they have enough time to get ready for school. For a lot of teens, it is hard to function properly at this early of a time. If schools would start just an hour later, students would have a better chance of getting the recommended amount of sleep each night. Waking up from a good night's sleep will always have a positive effect on one’s attitude the next day. Not only will students be rested, the teachers will be too. I’m sure teachers will be delighted to have a classroom full of happy and attentive students instead of sleepy and cranky ones. So why hasn’t the start time been changed if it so many benefits? It could be because people don’t like change or because of the disruption in morning routines. Making sure students get the best education should be priority. With starting high school one hour later, it would improve student attendance, health, and academic achievements.
People may say that students just need to go to bed earlier to get the sleep they need. What those people don’t know is how different an adolescent’s sleep cycle really is. Their bodies release melatonin, a sleep regulating hormone, later in the night which makes it harder for them it get up early in the morning. According to Dooren (2010), a high school in Rhode Island performed a study with two hundred students who agreed to keep track of their sleep habits and the start time of school was only delayed by thirty minutes. At the conclusion of the study, students sleep duration increased by an average of forty five minutes a night and the extra sleep had noticeable changes in the students. The number of times students were late due to oversleeping was cut nearly in half and students felt less irritated throughout the day. The percentage of students who felt depressed or unhappy fell from 66 percent at the start of the study to 45 percent at the end. Not only did this improve the students mental health, it made them more alert and ready to learn.
Some may argue there will be less time for after school activities if school would start later. Sports teams or clubs already feel they don’t have enough time to get things done. However, the weekends would be a great time to make up time lost. This may be a better time for activities since students are not already exhausted from a regular school day. With less time after school, practices or meetings would just have to be shorter and may need to be scheduled for more days if needed. Knowing there is a limited time to get these activities done, this could teach students to stay focused to finish the practice or meeting on time. Another way to make up lost time is using afternoon hours when there is a half day of school. Students usually go home and sit around the rest of the day. This time could be used more wisely for any school activity.
Another problem people always bring up for not changing the start time of school is the issue of parent’s work schedule and transportation. Most parents get their kids up and out the door before they have to go to work. If school starts later, that may not happen, but most high school kids are more responsible than younger kids. They can get themselves ready in the morning and get to the bus stop in time. A far amount of students drive themselves to school anyway, so parents shouldn’t worry about being late to work. During winter months when the sun doesn’t rise until 7 a.m., a later start time would mean no more driving to school in the dark. Furthermore, student drivers would be less groggy and pay better attention to the road if they had more sleep. According to AAA (2018), drowsiness contributes to more than 100,000 crashes per year.
The biggest benefit for starting school later would be the increase in student academic achievement.
Studies show lack of sleep decreases concentration, lowers attention spans, causes forgetfulness, and slows reaction time. Students tend to make more errors with less sleep and this has a direct impact on test scores and grades. Our brains are affected by the amount of sleep we get and the less sleep we get the less it works. It’s just common sense. The more sleep a person gets, the better they will function. The skills we need to use for math and languages are in the part of the brain that is very sensitive to inadequate sleep. No matter how interesting a teacher is making their early morning class, most students will be too sleepy to remember or understand what was just said. Studies have shown by delaying the school day by just 15 minutes students reported getting better grades compared to the schools that started
earlier. Not getting enough sleep has always been an issue for high school students and the main reason is the early start times for schools. By starting school later, student performance will improve and they will be more attentive and get better grades. Also, tardiness will decrease and students will be less irritable during the day. Starting later will reduce the number of drowsy drivers on the road and decrease accidents on the way to school. While some people believe starting school later will cause problems with after school activities, only a small adjustment will need to be done to the schedules. School administrators are always looking to find ways to increase student grades. Implementing mandatory study halls and scheduling study time for finals has shown some change but there still is work to be done. People need to see the most important thing for students succeed is to make sure they have the ability to learn and the way to achieve that is to start high school and hour later.