Schools Should Delay Starting Times

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Are students in your school accidently falling asleep in class, getting sick, and making low grades? All of these issues may be caused by the simple factor of school beginning too early in the morning. People may not be aware of the effects of school starting times, but many students are impacted by them every day.

Numerous schools in the United States require students to show up to their first class by at least 7:30 in the morning (“A’s from Zzzz’s” 1). This early starting time can cause multiple problems for students. They feel more tired, their health decreases, and their grades are negatively impacted. All of these effects are detrimental to students’ success in school and other activities in life. For instance, if a teenager is exhausted from waking up early for school, then he or she will have a more difficult time participating in extracurricular activities after school. Also, if students cannot be completely alert during class because of drowsiness, then their grades could suffer. It is possible to resolve all of these issues by schools simply delaying their commencement times.

Schools should not begin so early in the morning because the students’ sleep patterns do not correlate to the early morning commencements, some students’ health is jeopardized, and the students are too tired to sufficiently participate in class. Schools are not making it easy for their students to participate in class if they are establishing early commencing schedules that cause the students to be confronted with negative issues. Schools should begin later in the day in order for the natural sleep schedules of students to better match the school hours, students to take better care of their health, and for students to be more alert during the s...

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Edward, Finley. "Do Schools Begin Too Early?" The effect of start times on student achievement 12.3 (2012): n. pag. Education Next. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. .

"School Start Time and Sleep." National Sleep Foundation. National Sleep Foundation, 2013. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. .

"Sleep and Disease Risk." Healthy Sleep. WGBH Educational Foundation and the Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine., 18 Dec. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2013. .

Carrell, Scott E., Teny Maghakian, and James E. West. 2011. "A's from Zzzz's? The Causal Effect of School Start Time on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 3(3): 62-81.

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