School Start Times for Teenagers

School Start Times for Teenagers Teenagers all over the country are suffering from sleep deprivation due to their early start times at school. Some schools have tried making their start times later and have seen incredible improvements in students’ health and academics. This has become a difficult situation however for the bus schedules in school districts with elementary and middle school schedules. Even though changing the time teens start school affects bus and district operations, teens should start school later because students would be more alert and get better grades. After changing the morning start times to later, students have shown dramatic changes in their academics. “When seven Minneapolis high schools changed their start times

“Attendance, standardize test scores, and academic performance increased, while tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression decreased” (Hanes). Many health issues can occur from not getting enough sleep. Although, these issues do not occur when students get the correct amount of sleep. “Sleep is critical to brain development, memory function, and cognitive skills especially among children and teenagers” (Experts). Some of the difficulties resulting from sleep deprivation are impaired alertness and attention, difficulty to solve problems, cope with stress, and retain information. More include, depression, substance abuse, increase in sexual activity and aggression. This can also produce mood swings, obesity, and immune disorders. Teenagers seem to have different sleep schedules than adults. They need nine hours of sleep but that rarely occurs due to such early school times. “According to medical research, teens have decidedly different sleep patterns than either preteens or adults and are typically programmed to go to sleep no earlier than 11 p.m.” (Hanes). Students with poor grades report getting 25 minutes fewer of sleep than students with A’s and B’s. “59 percent of sixth through eight graders and 87 percent of high schoolers get less than 8.5 hours of sleep, the National Sleep Foundation Estimates”