Schools Should Start Later So Teens Could Sleep And Function At Best

An advocacy group is calling for schools to start at a later time so students could sleep longer. Later school times have been found to be beneficial to the well-being of the students and their academic performance.

"Start School Later" is an advocacy group with the mission to allow students more sleep by changing the time public schools start everyday, according to Huffington Post. Sleep is essential for every human being, especially for teenagers since they are growing and developing at a rapid rate, according to Terra Ziporyn Snider, executive director of the advocacy group.

In more than 40 states, nearly 75 percent of public schools start earlier than 8:30 a.m. Some students are forced to wake up at 5 or 6 a.m. in time for the long commute to school.

Snider explains that most teenagers in the U.S. cannot get enough sleep with the current hours being implemented in schools. Over two-thirds to students are getting under 8 hours of sleep a night while 40 percent of high school students get less than six hours of sleep a night.

Due to busy schedules, teens are experiencing an epidemic of sleep disorders that may lead to narcolepsy, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The hours of 5 and 6 a.m. are when teens are at their lowest point of alertness in their 24-hour cycle, according to Judith Owens, director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders of Boston Children's Hospital.

Several studies have recommended starting high school at 8:30 a.m. or later to allow students between 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night. Nauset Regional High School decided to push their start time to 8:35 a.m. instead of the initial 8 a.m. to give students a few more minutes to sleep in.

Aside from students showing up to school more refreshed, tardiness fell by 35 percent and unsatisfactory grades fell by half. Most of nearly 1,000 students at Nauset Regional High School agree that starting school is better even if it pushed dismissal to 3 p.m., according to Boston Globe.

Schools that have implemented changing the time classes to a later hour noticed fewer absences, fewer suspension, better graduation rates, less alcohol, less substance abuse, fewer signs of depression and less car crash rates. Better cognitive functions and better test scores were also noticed among students who woke up at a later time.