Does A Later Start Time Positively Affect Students?

 How many students come through school doors at the beginning of the day and look absolutely exhausted or they tell teachers how tired they are?  Students constantly complain about how early school starts, and state they barely got any sleep the night before.  When they are asked about what time they go to bed, they usually say anytime between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am.  When asked why they are up so late, many times it is because they couldn’t fall asleep, they were on their phones, or they were watching tv.  When they arrive at school, they have a hard time staying awake or doing any work for the first few periods in their day. So could students be positively affected by a later start time for school?

If schools had a later start time, then it would allow for students to sleep in more in the morning and be more productive during their school day.  Teenagers tend to stay awake later at night, which causes them to be drowsy when their alarms go off early in the morning.  If schools started an hour later, it would give students an extra hour of sleep.  This extra hour allows students to have enough sleep to be more actively engaged in their classes, and be able to focus on their assignments.  This could lead to higher test scores and an increase in classroom grades.  The extra sleep is beneficial for their health, as they are growing and going through hormonal changes.  Sleep can improve their physical and mental health.  In the article, Matthew Walker (2022), a sleep expert from the University of California, Berkeley was quoted saying, “Asking a teenager to be awake and trying to absorb information at 8.30 in the morning in some ways is like asking an adult to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning with good grace, good humor, positive mood and start learning information efficiently.” (para. 7).   This gave me a chance to reflect on how I would function that early in the morning, and I know I would have a very hard time staying awake, let alone being alert enough to do much of anything productive.  So from an academic and health standpoint, I believe there is a great benefit for older students to begin school later in the day.



On the contrary, there are some other factors that need to be considered when deciding on the best time for schools to begin their day.  One consideration is extracurricular activities and internships.  If schools started later, that means they would be released later.  This would lead to less time to complete internships.  It would also potentially decrease opportunities for extracurricular activities, such as sports and music.  Older students could be responsible for taking care of their younger siblings after school, so if elementary school students began their day first, then there would be daycare issues after school.  Parents could be impacted with daycare concerns because they may not be able to adjust their work schedules to be cohesive with their child’s school schedule.

So at the end of the day, the decision is extremely complex because there are so many pieces to keep in mind when making this decision.  If it was in the best interest of the student’s health and well-being, than the later start would be the best option.  However, there are many other factors that impact this decision.  These factors could potentially outweigh the overall well-being of students.  In a perfect world, we would always want to do what is best for students, but thinking about how a change in school times could negatively impact families, it may not make sense to change the time of the school day.  Hopefully, school leaders can develop another option that would benefit all students and families.

References

Cantor, M. (2022 September 14). Do Later Start Times Make Teens Happier? California’s About to Find Out. The Guardian (US. ed). https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/14/california-later-school-start-times-law-teens-sleep

Comments

  1. ArianaSeptember 19, 2022 at 3:34 PM

    Interesting read! As someone who wakes up early, I get my best work done in the morning. It wasn't until you mentioned that asking students to be functional at 8 similar to asking an adult to be functional at 4... I'm an early bird, but not that early!! If only there were more hours in the day. It might not be in the best interest for students (and families) to start middle/high schools earlier - I wonder what our other options are? After reading your post, I noticed you wrote about how students go to bed late because they are on their phones or video games. I feel like there needs to be a larger focus on teaching students healthy technology & social media use and having a partnership between students, parents and schools to help students build these healthy habits! It is not healthy for anyone to be on their phones so late at night and most adults don't have the self control to put the phone down. We need to start building these habits now!

    Don't get me wrong - I would love to sleep in any chance I can get. (:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Emily GerOctober 2, 2022 at 11:33 AM

    I really enjoyed reading this piece and the different sides of the argument that you highlighted. At first, I was thinking NO WAY, but after continuing reading about the benefits of getting more sleep, I softened a bit on whether it could be a possibility. I feel like I see so many of my students coming in in the morning looking exhausted, as you described above, so maybe an extra hour of sleep could be beneficial. I wonder, if they were given extra time due to school times being pushed back, how many students would actually use that time for more sleep and not for watching TV or playing games early before school!

    ReplyDelete

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