Delaying School Start Time Essay

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Recommended: The advantage of coming to school early

Take a look into a high-school classroom. You will most likely find a teacher in front of the class and the students sitting at their desks, taking notes. Yet, look closer and you will find some of the students dozing off - leaving a puddle of drool on their desk. Yuck! Today, an immense amount of high school students are not getting enough sleep. As students get older, they have a vestige of free time left in their hands. Students have to go to school early, spend hours listening to teachers, then go to practices and meetings after school, and then come home with loads of homework to complete for the next day. They are simply not getting enough sleep – staying awake until 2 a.m. doing nothing but homework. So how can we solve such an important …show more content…

secretary of education talks about the benefits of delaying school (Varna-White). In 2009, 200 students from St. George’s boarding school agreed to participate in the study of sleep habits by delaying the start time by 30 minutes (Dooren). The students completed a sleeping habit survey before and after the shift in the school-start time. Although the start time changed, the lights-out times of between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. were not changed. At the end of the study, the average sleep duration on school nights increased by 45 minutes to nearly eight hours. The number of students who were getting at least eight hours of sleep increased to 54.7% from 16.4% and the “daytime sleepiness” decreased to 20% from 49.1%. Also, there were changes in mood where students who rated themselves as depressed or “somewhat unhappy” decreased to 45% from 66%. Also, the students who were feeling annoyed or irritated throughout the day decreased to 63% from 84%. Lastly, the number of students who either missed or were tardy to their first class because they overslept decreased to 44 events from 80 events. What a huge progress! Not only are students falling asleep less in class, students are feeling energized in the morning, not feeling depressed or anxious

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