Why High School Should Start Later Essay

600 Words2 Pages

High schools start too early in the morning, causing many students to be tired, and unfocused throughout their school day. This causes problems in how well students can learn, as well as their general health overall. Early school starting times should be moved forward one hour, in order to promote students health, and ability to learn. As of now, many high schools start around 7:30 AM, which is too early in the morning, when most teenagers are not ready to go to sleep until 11:30 PM. Teenagers go to sleep later because their biological clock is set an hour later. "In subsequent studies, Carskadon showed that puberty alters the biological clock, programming teenagers to fall asleep about an hour later than they did earlier in life and to sleep later in the morning" (Lamberg). Since teenagers sleep later at night, and into the morning, a later school starting time would allow teenagers to get extra sleep, and be more prepared for school. There are many benefits that have been found to come with later school starting times. Students are more alert, ready to learn, and are healthier with later starting times.

These studies have shown that starting schools later not only …show more content…

With students not falling asleep in class, they will be able to pay attention to what the lesson is about, rather than sleeping in class. This then leads to better performance in school, since students are more awake in class. Even a small change in starting times for schools results in major benefits. "We found that even this modest 25-minute delay in school start time resulted in reductions in depressed mood, caffeine use, daytime napping, tardiness to class, and falling asleep in class" (Rende). That small 25-minute change created many benefits, so with an hour later for start times, students would get even more sleep, causing even more benefits for

Open Document