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High School Should Start Later Essay

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“Please let me be, please go away. I am NOT going to get up today! The alarm can ring, the birds can peep, my bed is warm, my pillow’s deep. Today’s the day I’m going to sleep!” Dr. Seuss's Poem, “I am NOT going to get up today” is a perfect representation of sleep deprived teenagers in our world today. Nursery rhymes aside, this problem of lack of sleep is a serious matter. In fact, according to the CDC, 70 percent of teens aren’t getting recommended hours of sleep on school nights (Insufficient Sleep among High School Students). Recently, the debate about whether or not school should start later has grown tremendously. Some say high schools should push back start times, so students can sleep in; however, school schedules don’t need to change: what should change …show more content…

However, teens’ bad habits more than circadian rhythms are a factor that inhibit concentration and sleep quality. The body releases the hormone melatonin when it is dark out, which causes tiredness. However, teens spend a great deal of time looking at bright TV’s, computers, and phones which “directly inhibits the release of melatonin” (Melatonin and Sleep). Avoiding screens before bed and limiting screen time can help teens fall asleep earlier and not wake up sleep deprived the next morning.
Additionally, the quality of sleep teens are getting is poor, due in part to lack of physical activity in 70% of teens (Terzian and Moore 1). Exercise during the day improves sleep quality at night and “as little as 10 minutes… can dramatically improve quality of your nighttime sleep” (How Exercise Affects Sleep). If teachers provide more opportunities for students to be active during the day by letting students move around the classroom, teens activeness during the day can improve their sleep quality at

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In her article “Let Kids Sleep Later,” Terra Snyder argues that schools should push back start times to allow for more sleep for students. Snyder cites research that shows that adolescents need 8-10 hours of sleep per night, but many are not getting enough due to early school start times. She also provides examples of schools that have successfully pushed back start times and seen improvements in attendance, academic performance, and overall student health. While some may argue that early start times prepare students for the "real world," Snyder makes a compelling case for why the benefits of later start times outweigh the potential drawbacks.

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starting times begin at 7 A.M in the morning, making teenagers wake up around 5:00 A.M to 6:30 A.M. causing teenagers that stayed up last night weary and fatigued when they arrive at school. Sleep is an enormous part of growth, health, and prevention of stress, think about what happens when you lack sleep. Almost anybody that is exhausted will have lack of focus throughout the day. 28% of tired students tend to fall asleep in their first class causing a harmful grade. Some sleepy students do not even bother to show up to school, contributing to drop out rates and damaging grades to rise.

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Not getting enough sleep is not only unhealthy, it dangerous. In the article “Sleep to Succeed” it shows how any teens really do need sleep. They wouldn’t be able to function without it. If we don’t, we won’t be able to be social or have good grades. In this article it also states “Sleep deprivation is a serious issue for many teens.

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“Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together,” (Thomas Dekker), but with most middle and high schools starting before 8:00 am, students aren’t getting the recommended hours of sleep they need to do well in school. School start times should be later for middle and high schoolers for the protection of students’ academic scores, the reduced risk of traffic accidents, and for the protection of student health, although people may argue that parent work schedules may have to change and that the bus schedule change may or will be costly. Middle and high schools should start later for the positive impacts they would have on students and their families. First of all, the start times of middle and high schools should be later for the protection of students’ academic scores. Students who don’t get enough sleep get lower academic and standardized test scores.

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Teenagers and Sleep In the articles, “Hard Lesson in Sleep for Teenagers” by Jane Brody, “From Zzzz’s To A’s-Adolescents And Sleep” by Sarah Spinks, and “Sleep Experts Answer Your Questions On Teens And Shuteye” by Eliza Barclay, the issue of teenagers not getting enough sleep is apparent. Sleep is an issue that is present in all ages and it is very important to get enough of it, especially as a teenager. Most people worry about teenagers that are not getting enough sleep, and the risks involved. Brody states “that the average adolescent needs eight and a half to nine and a half hours of sleep” and that less that 20 percent even get that much sleep. One example of this is in Fairfax Virginia.

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The American Academy of Sleep Medicine asserts that early school days lead to accidents along the roads, depression among the young teenagers, and upsurge in poor performance academically for middle and high school students. Teens struggle through the challenge of waking up very early in the morning so that they can be at school at the right time. Research implies that teens should get at least eight to nine hours of night sleep for their good health. Various sponsors such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Centers for Disease Control have the strong advice on why schools should start later. Nevertheless, by being able to sleep more before school starts, students will be able to become well rested, more attentive in classroom settings, and perform better as learners.

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Quarter 1 Assessment: Annotated Bibliography Thesis Statement: Due to adolescent sleep patterns, school needs to start at 10:00AM Source 1: The UCLA Health website tells how teenage sleep patterns differ from adults, due to changing bodies, and internal sleep clocks. This informational database is based on college research. The title of this page is “Sleep and Teens”.

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Students are going to bed extremely late. The recommended amount of sleep a teenager is supposed to get is eight to ten hours of sleep a night, but on average only about 15% of all high school students get that amount of sleep. Because of this many teens are also suffering from sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, insomnia, and sleep apnea, causing kids to get even less sleep. I am a real life example of this, I have a small form of insomnia and I only get a couple of hours of sleep a night, making it very hard for me to focus throughout the day because I am tired. Fortunately, I have gotten used to this problem and my body is now used to getting a small amount of sleep.

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According to School Starts Later: Healthy Hours, “Most teenagers need 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep every night, but two thirds of teens get only seven hours of sleep, which leads to about 33% of teens falling asleep in class.” Let’s place quotes around the numerical facts. Less sleep affects the teen’s education and can lead to bad grades. With less sleep, the students could even flunk a class. If high school classes started at 10:00 a.m. instead of the usual 8:20 a.m., sleeping wouldn’t be an issue.

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If school simply started a mere hour later than it does now more students will get to school on time, not go hungry, and pay more attention during their classes. If school started an hour later than it does currently, it would be much more accessible. According to Luigi De Gennaro, “sleep loss is frequently associated with poor declarative and procedural learning in students”(2). This quote clearly states that sleep loss and poor school performance are closely associated. Students would get more sleep if school didn’t start so early.

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1050 Words | 5 Pages

Every morning, high school students are jolted awake from the piercing sound of their alarm clocks. They are exhausted and convinced that it can’t be time to get up since even the sun hasn’t risen yet. Sure enough, it is 6:20 am and to make it on time to their 7:30 am class, they have to get up, even when their bodies still wants to be asleep. Sleep is detrimental to teenagers but because of early start times in American high schools, adolescents aren’t receiving the proper amount of sleep needed to remain healthy and function properly. By changing school start times by only one hour, students grades will improve as well as their overall wellbeing.

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707 Words | 3 Pages

You need to be in class by seven thirty or risk getting detention. Even though this panic feeling of being late and tired is all too familiar to most teenagers if not all, many schools still have starting times before seven thirty and don’t realize that it greatly affects the amount of sleep a teenager gets resulting in lower test scores. Although getting enough sleep may not seem like that hard of a task, medical research shows that teens who regularly get too little sleep are

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Also, someone who has been deprived may fall asleep… behind the wheel. Despite these devastating facts, people are yet to understand this and end up underestimating the importance of sleep. In “Get your ZZZZZs!” by Kathiann Kowalski and Marcia Lusted, the authors introduce the problem of sleep deprivation in teens, illustrate their ideas through everyday experiences of young adults and elaborate on the causes for teens losing sleep. The average amount of sleep an average American teenager gets per night is around seven hours.

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1507 Words | 7 Pages

Students are more to be tardy and to be absent and they tend to sleep during classes yet it could also affect the performance of the students in school. Early school start times are one of the identified by The National Institutes of Health and the American Lung Association of New England as a factor of sleep deficiency. According to Croft (1994), she believes that early school start times have a “deleterious impact” and impose an “unrealistic burden” on students.

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1182 Words | 5 Pages

TEEN SLEEP DEPRIVATION Often, lack of sleep is the first reason given by any adult who is not performing their best, but lack of sleep is also a major issue in most teens. A prime example of how lack of sleep is very common with teens is my family member, a 15-year-old girl who will be addressed as S.L.M. and has a clean bill of health. She’s notorious for napping too long during the day and staying up too late leading to an endless cycle of sleep deprivation. She often has difficulty waking up for school and has been known to miss the school bus in the morning.

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