Why School Should Start Later Essay Example
School Should Start Later
How many times has this happened to you; it’s six thirty on a Tuesday morning and your alarm has already gone off twice, you’re still lying in bed and your bus will come in twenty minutes. This is an everyday occurrence at my house. It’s a proven statistic that the average high school student does not get enough sleep. The truth is that we can’t budget all of our activities, sports and homework into one day and still get nine hours of sleep. In order to help boost academic averages among students and make sure students receive enough, rest schools must start later in the morning.
To boost the academic averages, students must be more alert and well rested. In a study conducted in a Virginian middle school which started school 1 hour later at 8:15 instead of 7:15, the students had a 2.2 percentile increase in math, and a 1.5 percentile increase in reading on average (Resmovits). The results speak for itself, the extra sleeping time increased grades, productive in class, energy, ultimately resulted in better standardized test scores. Although changing the school start time has many benefits, school administrators have responded that if school started later, bus routes would have to be shifted and employee’s contracts and work hours would be significantly changed which the school districts have predicted to be a $220 million cost which board members are not eager to sign.(Brush). But don’t you think this cost is negligible? It’s a small fee to pay in order to insure the health and safety of the students. Another result of the early start times of many schools is that students are not receiving enough rest. A study done at the University of Minnesota reported that schools with a later starting time produced students who were not as lazy, received better grades and were not as depressed compared to students who had earlier school start times. (Regional News 6)It has been scientifically proven that teens need around 9 hours of sleep, but
How many times has this happened to you; it’s six thirty on a Tuesday morning and your alarm has already gone off twice, you’re still lying in bed and your bus will come in twenty minutes. This is an everyday occurrence at my house. It’s a proven statistic that the average high school student does not get enough sleep. The truth is that we can’t budget all of our activities, sports and homework into one day and still get nine hours of sleep. In order to help boost academic averages among students and make sure students receive enough, rest schools must start later in the morning.
To boost the academic averages, students must be more alert and well rested. In a study conducted in a Virginian middle school which started school 1 hour later at 8:15 instead of 7:15, the students had a 2.2 percentile increase in math, and a 1.5 percentile increase in reading on average (Resmovits). The results speak for itself, the extra sleeping time increased grades, productive in class, energy, ultimately resulted in better standardized test scores. Although changing the school start time has many benefits, school administrators have responded that if school started later, bus routes would have to be shifted and employee’s contracts and work hours would be significantly changed which the school districts have predicted to be a $220 million cost which board members are not eager to sign.(Brush). But don’t you think this cost is negligible? It’s a small fee to pay in order to insure the health and safety of the students. Another result of the early start times of many schools is that students are not receiving enough rest. A study done at the University of Minnesota reported that schools with a later starting time produced students who were not as lazy, received better grades and were not as depressed compared to students who had earlier school start times. (Regional News 6)It has been scientifically proven that teens need around 9 hours of sleep, but