Time flies: should school start later?

By KAMERON ALEXANDER
Sheridan High School Student

Editor’s note: The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade honors English class, taught by Tanya Busailah.

Have you ever thought about the start time of schools? What time did your school start? Over the course of this essay I will describe both the pros and cons of school starting at a later time.

First, I will describe the pros of school starting later. The three main ideas that will be improved are attendance, attention, and grades. These benefits will mostly be centered at a high-school level due to the difference between adolescents’ brains and adult brains.

As a person’s brain develops rapidly during their teen years, they may need more sleep to help them function properly. That’s why school starting at 9 a.m. would be more beneficial to high school students.

For my first improvement, which is attendance, studies from the American Psychological Association (apa.org) show that when students get more sleep they are more likely to attend school long term. People may ask “Why don’t the kids just go to sleep earlier?” Well, this is because during puberty hormonal shifts happen in the body that push kids to fall asleep later. This means that the problem is not as simple as it may seem, adding more credibility for a late start.

Secondly, there is a student’s attention to consider. Studies show that having well rested students prevents a myriad of problems that involve attention: “Later start times were correlated with better attendance, less tardiness, less falling asleep in class, better grades, and fewer car crashes” (apa.org). All of these problems shown are mostly attention-based. A later start time would not only benefit a student’s grade, but it would also benefit early morning commuters. With fewer car crashes associated with a later start time, commuters as well as students would benefit. Many area businesses also have their start time at 8 a.m., creating more traffic.

Next, I will move onto the cons. Perhaps the main cons of a late start school are the disruption of schedules, logistics of transportation, and extracurricular activities being moved later. These flaws are the main reasons that a late start has not been adapted by more school systems.

I will tackle the first two cons as they tie in together. The main problem that disrupts schedules is that the benefits of a late start are only seen at a high-school and middle-school level; this means there is no need for a late start in elementary school. This can pose a challenge as parents may need to leave earlier than the time the late-start bus arrives, meaning they will have to leave some kids at home. If the parents take their kids to school and some children start late and others don’t, it can lead to a difficulty balancing getting kids to school and arriving at work.

It also leads to an even bigger problem which is bus routes. Schools within a school system starting at different times means that buses need separate routes to accommodate the start times. This means that bus drivers need to be working and buses need to be driving longer.

For the last con of extracurricular activities, they pose a challenge as kids will need to be away from home later. Due to school ending later, extracurriculars will begin and end much later. This can dampen the amount of participation in these activities as either the kids or their parents will not want them to stay out later and impede on family activities such as dinner.

Has this essay changed your mind? This topic is important, and I believe improving the learning experience in school is necessary. More school districts should look into a late start for improving the learning environment of their schools. Isn’t that why we are at school anyway – to learn?