In life, getting the right amount of sleep is what gets us through the day and keeps us energized to take on any task. Students, rarely get the recommended amount of sleep they need to take on the school day because they were up late into the night finishing required assignments and studying for exams. Lack of sleep can cause kids to act out in irresponsible ways and out of character. Kyla Wahlstrom and Judith Owens, authors of the ProQuest article “School start time effects on adolescent learning and academic performance, emotional health and behavior” write about how a lack of sleep can affect children’s mental state. After conducting tests, the authors stated that “Teens who are sleep deficient because of early starting time for their school are much more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as drug, cigarette, and alcohol use (…)” (ProQuest). Getting less sleep, students may start to do worse in school and they may participate in risky behaviors to cover up their disappointments. Knowing this, schools should become more aware of students mental health and realize that getting more rest will help the student be more caring about themselves and their grades. According to this article, sleep deficit in teens is being viewed as a public health issue that needs to be discussed more worldwide. This public health issue affects more than half of the students all across the country. Through the test conducted, the authors learned that many studies of academic performance and later school start indicated many benefits, including various achievements. Starting school early in the morning, which decreases student’s amount of sleep does affect their mental and physical states. In order for this to change, schools and administrators need to realize that later start times will create a more positive environment with harder working students since they are getting the rest they need to get through their day.
Louisville, encourages students to participate in extracurricular activities to have school spirit and show your talents. Playing a sport, participating in performing arts, or being a part of clubs can keep you out late on school nights, when you may need to finish homework or study for a test. When it comes to this, sleep is not the student’s number one priority when it should be because it is very important. Adolescents often push aside sleep to do social, academic, and extracurricular activities. After getting home from these activities late at night, students start studying and other assignments when they should be going to sleep. Knowing this, students are losing at least two to three hours of sleep a night to get their work done. This should not be the case. With a later start time, students would not be sleep deprived. Starting school later would give them more time to do their work in the morning, letting them feel comfortable and okay with going to bed at a decent time. According to Healthline, there are many effects of sleep deprivation including, weakened immune system, memory issues, mood changes, trouble thinking and concentrating, and high blood pressure. All of these effects are terrible for a student to struggle with. Starting classes later would help students to not feel any of these effects. In the Google Scholar article written by Paul Kelley, he states, “the benefits of later school starts, including better student attendance, higher test scores, and improved sleep duration” (Google Scholar). All of these benefits should encourage schools to consider starting school later as it would make their students feel much happier about coming to school in the morning. Starting school later in the morning will allow students to feel healthier, because they get more sleep, and are better prepared to do assignments all day long.
Starting school at later times would give students more time to rest and get their work done, but it may cause other issues that do not come to mind immediately. Starting school later, can cause students to get stuck in more traffic than usual since many people are going to work in the late morning. Getting stuck in traffic can cause kids to be late to school more than usual. Another downfall of starting school later would be that students would get released from school at later times which means their extra-curricular activities would start later. Even though their extracurricular activities would start later and they may get home later, they would have time in the morning to work on assignments they need to finish or sleep in and get the rest they deserve. According to the article “5 Pros and Cons of Later School Start Times”, there are many disadvantages to starting school later, two of which are “A late start time will disrupt parents’ schedules and starting later in the day will affect time available for after school tutoring” (Master of Arts). In many households, parents work traditional hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and adjusting the first bell to the recommended hour of 10 a.m. would make it challenging for some students to get to school or for parents to take time off work. As for the after school tutoring, many students use tutors as a resource, but starting school later may make it harder for the student and tutor to find the ability to adjust their schedules. To finish off, starting school later in the morning has many disadvantages for the student and parents and may make them late to school more often and not be able to receive the necessary tutoring they need to succeed in school.
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