Later Start Times Essay

542 Words2 Pages

Everybody likes to sleep late during the summer, but when school starts back it’s hard to get sleeping schedules back to normal. Many schools are researching how later start times affect students. In my opinion later start times would have a positive effect on students because they would be more awake while driving, have more time to sleep, and make better grades.

Most accidents involve young people who fall asleep behind the wheel. Studies show that people within the age group of 16 to 29 are most likely to be involved in crashes caused by the driver falling asleep (“Excessive sleepiness”). I think if school started at a later time, this would give students time to wake up and stay awake while driving. People who get less than 8 hours of …show more content…

I think if they get more sleep, they would stay awake in class and be more focused. For instance, in Wake County, North Carolina they did a study on how a one hour delay in start times affected middle school students. It turns out that their standardized test scores increased by 2 percentile points in Math and 1 percentile point in Reading. From this study they learned that students with below-average test scores were affected the most, and that later start times would “narrow gaps in students achievement” (“Do schools begin too early?”). It has been proven through this study and others that later start times would improve students grades and …show more content…

Researchers say that people sleeping over 8 hours have an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. However, people who slept less than four hours each night showed an increased risk as well. “The participant with more than eight hours of sleep demonstrated a 34% significant increase of dying from CHD and those who sleep below four hours had 35% risk” (“Is too Much Sleep Bad for You?”). This study says that both people who get more than 8 hours and people who do not are at risk for the same disease. Therefore, there aren’t any real health issues with getting more sleep in the morning. In my opinion schools changing their start times would be beneficial to

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