Mar 29, 2023
Dear Mr. Joseph,
Hundreds of teens go through Byron Center High School every year, and with school being 9 months out of the year, it has an big impact on hundreds of students’ lives. Byron Center High School is well known for its excellence in many things such as safety and education. With this, however, there is one improvement to be made that could greatly boost the excellence of Byron Center High School. I would like you to recognize that school hours should officially start at 8:30 am instead of 7:55 am.
I have personally been attending BCHS for almost 5 years, therefore, I know the struggles of waking up as early as 6 a.m. to make it to the bus when I was younger. I also attended another school prior to BCHS. The school
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The American Academy of Pediatrics explains that the ideal middle and high school start time is 8:30 a.m. or later because it would allow students to get the 8-10 hours of sleep needed for their age. Lack of sleep has been proven to lead to obesity, depression, poor academic performance, and poor lifestyle choices. In comparison, getting enough sleep allows for less anxiety and a lower chance of injury along with crash rates.
Not only the Byron Center Public School district but many school districts around the nation struggle with the issue of starting school hours too early; 93% of high schools in the U.S. start before 8:30. A study conducted by the CDC found that 70% of highschoolers don’t get enough sleep on specifically school nights. With this, many staff at BCHS may believe that students have the opportunity to sleep enough, however, with the workload given with homework, especially in AP classes, it is less manageable to get at least eight hours of sleep, especially when coupled with sports and other extracurricular
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I can relate to this through the fact that I rarely get eight hours of sleep on school nights not because I am distracted, but simply because I do not have enough time to fit in my extracurriculars along with studying and homework for my AP and other more advanced classes. On nights when I get significantly less than eight hours of sleep, the following day I typically experience a noticeable decrease in my academic performance due to tiredness. A study was conducted by the CDC which proved that grades are greatly impacted by a student's amount of sleep. Professor Edwards discovered that starting school an hour later caused test scores to rain an average of 1.5-2 points, and on a national scale, it is estimated that math scores would increase as much as 8 points if school started an hour later. This can be greatly beneficial to all students, especially those who struggle academically. On top of that, most students would get more out of their learning experience which would make the amount of time put into school much more