High schools across the country start too early for high schoolers. Because of early start times, many teenagers are not getting the recommended eight to 10 hours of sleep each day, largely due to those early mornings. This lack of sleep can impact students both mentally and physically, in and out of the classroom.

Therefore, multiple studies have been carried out by different organizations on school start times, the impact of early school hours on students’ health, and their learning abilities. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers should be getting at least eight to 10 hours of sleep each day to stay consistently healthy. However, in 2021, 77% of high schoolers were not getting that recommended amount of sleep. While there are undoubtedly several factors for this, pushing back the start time for high schools could help students get that extra bit of rest. Furthermore, the problem of schools starting early is not an isolated one. In an analysis conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences in 2017-18, only 17% of all public high schools began classes at or after 8:30 a.m., with the remaining 83% starting earlier. Of the 83% that started before 8:30, 10% began before 7:30, and another 33% started between 7:30 and 7:59.

While this analysis does not show how these start times impact students, one meta-analysis conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that students whose schools started at or after 8:30 had better sleep, better socioemotional health and fewer negative moods thanks to getting more sleep than students who attended schools that started earlier. Finally, in a study published by the National Sleep Foundation, researchers stated: “In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., allowing adolescents the opportunity for 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night.” Both of these studies show that later start times for high school students are not only recommended but also proven to provide better results than earlier ones.

Schools should at least be testing later start times to see if they have a positive impact on their students. During these tests, they can also get feedback from students to see if the later start times affect their lives outside of school. As demonstrated in this article, school start times after 8:30 can be linked to better health, attitude and productivity. If schools do not begin to implement later start times, the mental and physical health of students who do not get enough sleep will continue to decline until something is done. Later start times in public high schools would be a huge step toward improving students’ abilities by allowing them the time they need to prepare and increasing their overall performance in the classroom.

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020006/index.asp

https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/later-school-start-times-more-popular-what-are-drawbacks

https://www.apa.org/topics/children/school-start-times

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/6/e2021054068/188062/School-Start-Times-Sleep-and-Youth-Outcomes-A-Meta?autologincheck=redirected 

https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(21)00169-8/fulltext