Should School Start Later?
Everyday, Academic Magnet High School Students drag themselves into school between 8:00 AM- 8:30 hoping to not catch a red tardy slip. These students are downing Starbucks cold brew, mochas, and lattes exhausted from the little sleep they got the day before. These red bull clutching students all somehow manage to get themselves into the school ready for their day. This 30 minutes is actually a change for a lot of students who in middle school started at 8:00. This extra half hour compared to middle schoolers does very little to combat the exhaustion students feel every morning. This is likely to be the distance students travel which is most likely increased from their home middle school. This could describe the teenage sleep cycle which likes to procrastinate and save every second to maximize their sleeping in. As national conservations arise about the proper school time many studies have been conducted to determine the right time. AMHS students and staff are also asking this question: Should school start even later?
Currently Magnet has a 7-hour schedule which has them end at 3:30 P.M. This is due to state regulations that require a certain amount of allocated time to a school day which means any shift to the start time would also affect the end time. Within this constraint there is still room for an argument of school start time.
Teen Sleep Cycles
In my research I found that from the CDC it recommends that both middle school and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 to allow students to naturally wake up their circadian rhythms that naturally shift later in the day because of puberty. This means that it is biologically harder for students to go to sleep before 11 p.m. and still wake up early. This is a necessary argument because they also talk about sleep deprivation being linked to increased anxiety and a weakened immune system. This has also been shown to lower academic performance and memory recall and retention. So in theory Academic Magnet High School’s start time already aligns with national standards and recommendations but students argue it should start later.
Senior Bennett Bair says he has to wake up at 5:20 A.M. in order to have time to go on a 5 mile run and complete 100 push ups and cook breakfast for his family before school starts. Between working out and making and eating breakfast Bennett feels rushed every morning which causes him stress. Bennett is not alone in this argument as many students agree they get between 5-7 hours of sleep every night which is far below the recommended 8-10 hours that teenagers need. Bennett described his daily morning routine as the hardest part of his day and an extra 30 minutes would help with his daily stress and anxiety.
The push for 9:00
Some students are arguing for a 9:00 A.M. start which has dismissal at 4:00 P.M. which is a notable difference. Senior Sam Abney says that the extra thirty minutes would a lot more rested and he would likely have zero tardies. Right now he says he is whipping into the parking lot at 8:28 and dashing into class at 8:29. He thinks the whole building would feel a lot calmer and less stressful in the morning. Supporters of this change look to different school districts that start at 9. For example, Berkeley county starts at 9:00 and ends at 4:00. Students from Berkely county have seen a shift in their attendance, grades, mood, and student health, research has also been shown to shift the tardiness by 30%. A senior, Jack Tierney, argues that these extra 30 minutes would only work to shift when students wake up, but it would be keeping the workload and stress the same. He argues that, if school started later, students would just go to sleep 30 minutes later cramming the same late night homework and studying in.
Arguing Against Later Start Time
While many students are for this extra time in the morning there are always going to be others who oppose a later start time and dismissal. Jack Tiereny continues to argue that a 4:00 P.M. release will mess up his time in the gym and unbalance his personal flow of manipulating time everyday. This would also affect sports, as senior All-Star basketball player Jaidon Daley argues that if practice was from 4:30-6:00 he would have dinner at around 6:30-7:00 which only pushes his time doing homework later which continues to push his bedtime later. He says it’s similar to a chain reaction or a domino effect. Athletes are not the only people concerned. Senior Reed Clendaniel works a part time job at the festival of lights and some days he works straight after school. He normally starts work at 4:00 P.M, but the release of school at 4:00 would shift back his work and possibly mess it up.
Conclusion
As workloads are increasing, the debate of extracurricular student stress appears to remain a problem, no matter what the start time may be. Many people argue that there is not a perfect start time and the only way to combat this problem is by adjusting to it. If Magnet ever decides to adjust their start time, the effects will definitely be seen. But for now, one thing is certain: the students at AMHS are not well adjusted to their sleep schedules.
