The Importance Of Sleep Deprivation In High School

Wake Up: High School Starts too Early The teacher's lecture quickly becomes unrecognizable mumblings as the students slips into sleep. All hope of passing the test slips away as their eye lids close. After school, the tennager starts driving home, runs a stop sign, and nearly gets in an accident. Sleep deprivation is plummeting their grades and nearly killing them.

Officials have been searching for a way to alleviate the problem of teen sleep deprivation for decades. In the 1990s State Legislatures and Congress passed acts on when schools should start. In an attempt to lessen sleep deprivation and crime, the Minnesota State Legislature passed a bill in 1997-98 prohibiting schools from starting before 8 a.m. (Pappas). Similarly, in 1998 the

Ted Velkoff is the vice chairman of the school board in Fairfax County, Virginia. He claims that different start times will impact the whole community negatively. School boards have to recognize consequences that will result, and decided if the cost is worth the benefit. New buses would be required, resulting in less money for the school to spend on needed education materials and teachers. With less money to hire teachers, the class sizes would get larger and students would not get the individual attention needed to succeed academically. Additionally, if school started later then it would also end later. Ted Velkoff says, “Many students and families fear that later end times will result in reduced opportunities to participate in after school activities and athletics, hold jobs and care for younger siblings (Velkoff).” He is asserting that later start times would make it difficult for students to do anything outside of school. Similarly, Brian Stack, a principle in New Hampshire, is also in the middle of debates over start times at his school. He reports that start times would not only take away after school activities, but also from school attendance. The students that attend his school must travel up to two hours away to play sports with other schools in their bracket. If school got out later, then the athletes would be missing more classes to get to the sporting events in time (Stack). Later high school start times would result in the loss of time in the classroom and less time for after school