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10 Reasons Why School Should Start Later (Top Benefits!)

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Research demonstrates that school starting later is good for adolescents . It can give them more time to sleep and even improve test scores.

Nevertheless, school starting later does have some downsides. Parents need to get their children off to school early so they can go to work and earn money for their families.

Here are my top 10 reasons why school should start later.

• Helps students focus
• Caters to their natural sleep timetable
• Reduce the risk of car accidents
• Reduces risky behavior
• Improves information retention
• Helps teens feel happier
• Improves attendance
• Reduces stress
• Increases breakfast consumption
• Caters to their needs

There are a number of reasons school should start later, and it’s not just because the teenagers are being lazy and want to sleep in. The rest of this article will address the scientific reasons defending a later start for schools.

Don’t miss the other side of the debate: Reasons School Should Start Earlier!

Reasons Why School should Start Later

1. school helps students focus.

One of the primary reasons school should start later is that it helps them focus. For students who are naturally inclined to stay up late and sleep in, going to school earlier can disrupt their circadian rhythm, diminishing their capacity to retain information.

What teachers often mistake for laziness is often the student’s body being negatively impacted by an unnatural biological cycle, compounding in a lack of focus on schoolwork.

In fact, a study by Lufi et al. (2011) found that an extra hour of sleep for adolescents significantly increased their attention levels on the “Mathematics Continuous Performance Test”.

By contrast, students that have a hard time focusing are also often singled out for misbehavior, which can affect their self-perception and make them less inclined to put in effort at school.

2. Caters to Their Natural Sleep Schedule

Another important reasons why school should start later is that a later start is better for students’ natural sleep cycle.

Especially for teenagers, the tendency is to stay up late and sleep longer, needing 8.5-9.5 hours to be fully rested. For a student who goes to bed at 11p.m., they would need to sleep until 7:30-8:30a.m. to be fully rested, a time frame when most schools have already started.

At the end of the day, better sleep means better performance in school. Students who feel refreshed in the morning are more likely to be optimistic about the day’s work and more receptive to learning.

3. Reduces the Risk of Car Accidents

Aside from improving student learning, a longer rest period for students who drive reduces the risk of car accidents.

For teens who are just learning how to drive, adding on an early school start is just a recipe for disaster. Teenagers make up over 50% of all car accidents that involve fatalities, and it certainly makes one wonder just how many of them are caused by sleep deprivation.

Lack of sleep slows down motor reflexes (Taheri & Arabameri, 2012) and makes a driver far more likely to make an error in judgement and cause an accident. Paired with their biological need to sleep longer, teens who start school earlier are more likely to get into accidents in the morning.

4. Reduces Other Risky Behaviors

Sleep-deprived teenagers are more likely to engage in any risky behaviors, not just driving dangerously.

While, of course, there are other factors that contribute to adolescent risk-taking (not least of which is an underdeveloped brain ), there’s no denying that sleep-deprived students aren’t using their mental faculties to full effect when it comes to risky decision making.

Switching to a later start time can help students, especially teenagers, feel more rested, emotionally stable, and less sleep-deprived so that they maximize their chances of making intelligent decisions.

5. Improves Information Retention

As well as helping students focus in the classroom environment, a later school start helps students retain information during class, especially those first and second period classes getting into the swing of the day.

Retaining information requires a lot of brainpower, something that students might struggle to conjure up if they are sleep-deprived.

A later start gives students more time to prepare themselves mentally for the day of learning ahead, helping them retain more information along the way.

One of the most extensive systematic reviews of the literature on school start times found that mid- to long-term memory retention is mildly improved with increased sleep in adolescents (Marx et al., 2017).

6. Helps Teens Feel Happier

When school starts early, teenagers can feel as though their natural circadian rhythm is off all the time, negatively affecting their mood and sense of well-being.

In fact, well-being is one of the most positive outcomes from research on late school start times (Marx et al., 2017).

Anecdotally, teenagers seem to be inclined to go to bed later (perhaps due to less self-governing abilities than adults). They also tend to need longer periods of rest than adults because they are going through significant physical and cognitive changes.

With that in mind, a later start to school is more in line with their biological needs and can positively affect their happiness.

7. Improved Attendance (Potentially)

Students who struggle in school or don’t see the merit in education often have a hard time motivating themselves to work hard, or even attend school at all.

When classes begin before 8:00, which is common in most schools, students on the periphery may feel more inclined to skip first period altogether to catch up on their sleep.

Starting a little later removes that concern and helps students who are struggling to motivate themselves take a little more time in the morning to prepare for the day ahead.

8. Reduced Stress

In a similar vein, students face a lot of stress that can negatively affect their performance in school, and the prospect of starting school so early is yet another factor that may contribute to stress in their lives.

Starting school later may on a case-by-case basis reduce stress, especially when it comes to attending first period. For example, the systematic review by Marx et al. (2017) found that some research shows that children often “are less tense at home, and school nurses have reported fewer stress-related complaints and illnesses.”

9. They Eat More Breakfast

A later school starting time may mean students will consume more breakfast.

Marx et al’s (2017, p. 13) systematic review found that some evidence points toward this outcome:

“There has been some indication (especially in Wahlstrom 2002) that students in later starting schools eat breakfast more often.”

Of course, intuitively this makes sense. They will have more time in the morning to prepare for school, meaning there is extra space in the day to allow young people to prepare and eat their breakfast.

The benefits of eating breakfast are vast – including heart health, better memory retention, and more stable moods.

10. Caters to Their Needs

Lastly, and in summation, starting school later than 8:00 helps cater to what the students want and need.

Most students would prefer not to have to run through the routine of preparing for school early in the morning if they could start later, and for teenagers especially, starting later could be a way to address their wants and needs .

There are a number of reasons school should start later than it does, and most students would jump at the chance to shift their first period back by just an hour. Starting school later helps students get a better night’s sleep, focus on their classwork, and improves their chances of success.

Other Debate Topics

• 16 Reasons College Athletes Should be Paid
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Bowers, J. M., & Moyer, A. (2017). Effects of school start time on students’ sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, and attendance: a meta-analysis.  Sleep health ,  3 (6), 423-431.

Lufi, D., Tzischinsky, O., & Hadar, S. (2011). Delaying school starting time by one hour: some effects on attention levels in adolescents.  Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine ,  7 (2), 137-143.

Marx, R., Tanner‐Smith, E. E., Davison, C. M., Ufholz, L. A., Freeman, J., Shankar, R., … & Hendrikx, S. (2017). Later school start times for supporting the education, health, and well‐being of high school students: a systematic review.  Campbell Systematic Reviews ,  13 (1), 1-99.

Taheri, M., & Arabameri, E. (2012). The effect of sleep deprivation on choice reaction time and anaerobic power of college student athletes.  Asian journal of sports medicine ,  3 (1), 15.

Wahistrom, K. (2002). Changing times: Findings from the first longitudinal study of later high school start times.  Nassp Bulletin ,  86 (633), 3-21. Widome, R., Berger, A. T., Iber, C., Wahlstrom, K., Laska, M. N., Kilian, G., … & Erickson, D. J. (2020). Association of delaying school start time with sleep duration, timing, and quality among adolescents.  JAMA pediatrics ,  174 (7), 697-704.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
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Why school should start later for teens

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Except where otherwise noted, “Why Schools Should Start Later” by Academic and Career Prep, Georgian College, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 .

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Why Should School Start Later?

Table of Contents

Teens reverie sleep each day. This need does not imply laziness on their part or lack of ambition thereof. Instead, sleep cycles change as children grow into adolescence. In adolescence, teens stay up until late and only get up late. It happens because their bodies release a hormone called melatonin which regulates their sleep. Consequently, the melatonin-induced rest keeps teens asleep until 8 a.m. making it appropriate to go to school later. Schools starting later help improve physiological and psychological well-being and help improve learners’ educational performance.

Physiological and Physical Well-Being

Arguably, the most crucial reason schools should start later is adolescent physiology. Adolescents are still growing and developing, and their body clocks are still changing. Studies have shown that, due to these changes, adolescents tend to go to bed later and wake up later than adults, leading to a lack of sleep (Crowley et at., 2018). This lack of sleep can negatively affect adolescents’ physical and mental health, such as fatigue, irritability, and poor concentration. Starting school later would allow adolescents to get the amount of sleep they need. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that when schools started later, adolescents got an extra 42 minutes of sleep per night compared to when schools began earlier. This extra sleep can help to improve their physical and mental health and can help to improve their performance in school.

The teenage years are a time of rapid physical and psychological growth and development. As adolescents try to figure out who they are and where they fit in, they often feel overwhelmed by the pressures of school, their peers, and society. As a result, adolescents are more prone to stress and anxiety than adults. One way to help reduce this stress is to start school later in the morning. By giving adolescents more time to rest and relax before facing the pressures of school, they can better manage their stress levels (Freeman et at., 2020). Studies have shown that adolescents report feeling less stressed, more rested, and more alert when school starts later in the morning. These findings suggest that starting school later in the morning can reduce stress and improve psychological functioning in adolescents. In addition to reducing stress, starting school later can also help to enhance adolescents’ self-esteem.

Adolescents often struggle with insecurity and self-doubt as they try to fit in with their peers and find their place in the world (Freeman et al., 2020). As a result, they often compare themselves to their peers, leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Starting school later can reduce this pressure by giving adolescents more time to rest and relax. This habit can help adolescents to accept themselves for who they are and be more confident in their abilities. Evidence from studies has shown that when school starts later in the morning, adolescents report feeling more positive about themselves, including handling more confident, less anxious, and less stressed (Patrick et al., 2020). Starting school later can also help adolescents better manage their emotions. Adolescents often struggle with regulating their emotions and can become easily overwhelmed by their feelings. These emotional states can lead to irritability, impulsivity, and aggression. However, starting school later in the morning can help reduce these feelings, giving adolescents more time to rest and relax before facing the pressures of school. Evidence from studies has shown that when school starts later, adolescents report feeling less irritable, more alert, and more capable of managing their emotions.

Educational Reasons

The most apparent educational benefit of starting school later is that it gives students more time to sleep. Sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle and is vital for students’ physical and mental health. A later start can give students more time to get the sleep they need to be well-rested and alert during the school day. Studies have shown that students who get adequate sleep are more likely to perform academically, attend better, and be more motivated in school (Sweller et al., 2019). In addition to the potential health benefits of getting more sleep, starting school later can also provide more time for learning and development. With more time in the morning, adolescents can participate in activities such as studying, reading, or reviewing material they learned the previous day. This action can help improve their understanding of the material and help them retain the information longer.

A later start time can also provide more time for extracurricular activities and sports. These activities can help improve adolescents’ physical health and provide them with opportunities for social interaction and emotional development (Freeman et al., 2020). Providing adolescents more time for these activities can help improve their overall well-being. Furthermore, starting school later can help to reduce the stress that students often experience. With a later start time, students can spend more time on activities they enjoy and less worrying about getting up for school in the morning. This will help reduce stress levels and allows students to focus more on their education.

In conclusion, there are many advantages to having school start later. School starting later would give students more time to get adequate sleep, which helps with their mental and physical health. Furthermore, students would be more alert and have better focus during their classes, allowing them to absorb more information and make better grades. Later starting times also give students more time to spend on extracurricular activities and less time worrying about homework and exams. Finally, starting school later would reduce students’ stress and help create a more positive school environment. In addition, starting school later would benefit both students and teachers, an idea that school administrators should seriously consider.

• Crowley, S. J., Wolfson, A. R., Tarokh, L., & Carskadon, M. A. (2018). An update on adolescent sleep: New evidence informing the perfect storm model. Journal of Adolescence, 67 , 55-65.
• Freeman, S., Marston, H. R., Olynick, J., Musselwhite, C., Kulczycki, C., Genoe, R., & Xiong, B. (2020). Intergenerational effects on the impacts of technology use in later life: Insights from an international, multi-site study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (16), 5711.
• Patrick, S. W., Henkhaus, L. E., Zickafoose, J. S., Lovell, K., Halvorson, A., Loch, S., … & Davis, M. M. (2020). The well-being of parents and children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A national survey. Pediatrics ,  146 (4).
• Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31 (2), 261-292.
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Persuasive Essay About Why School Should Start Later

Table of contents:

• Introduction
• Body paragraphs

It’s one of the favoured topics among high school students. You’re tired. After being up late last night, your school day started at 8:30 am this morning, and you want to know if anything can be done about it. Or perhaps you’re an early bird and like the time that school starts in the morning. Well, you can write a persuasive essay, and maybe if it’s good enough, your voice will be heard, either way.

Start off by taking a firm stance with your thesis statement. Whether you feel school should start later in the morning, or should not, you need to figure out why, and the reasons and benefits (or negatives) in your own mind, first of all. Make a quick outline with your statement of purpose at the top, followed by each point you want to make and the evidence you are going to use to support each point. Remember that you can use any evidence you like in a persuasive essay; it need not be restricted to facts and figures, but can be anecdotal, emotive, or statistical. Think of yourself as a politician trying to persuade an audience to vote for him or her.

Introduction examples

Pro: It’s been proven in many studies that teenagers do better with a later start to the day. With this in mind, why do we still start school at 8:30 in the morning?

Con: Starting later in the day at school interferes with parents’ working days, encourages students to stay up late, and would cause problems with after-school practices for sports.

Moving on into the body of your essay, carry on following your outline, setting up each point and presenting your evidence as you go. Have a look at potential titles, too, which should be reflective of your thesis statement.

Body paragraphs examples

Pro: Teenagers in high school should start at about 10 am. This would allow for a leisurely morning, making the day start off less fraught and stressful. A teenager could stay up until midnight or 1 am and still get a decent amount of sleep, which doesn’t happen when they have to wake up at 6:30 or 7 am. Traffic, too, will be more spread out, easing congestion, and students can take the time to get a good breakfast and be really mentally prepared for the day.

Con: Parents worry about getting themselves to work on time even when school starts at 8:30. A lot of working days would have to change significantly for people to get to work on time if high school started at 10 am instead. This could lead to large amounts of business disruption, and possible discrimination against parents for needing more flexible working hours.

Your conclusion is your last chance to leave an impression on your audience, so make it significant and meaningful. Start by briefly reiterating what your points were, and finish with a bang by calling on your audience to take some action in response to your essay.

Conclusion examples

Pro: Starting later results in benefits for teachers, benefits for students, and also for parents. Think about how rested you’d feel if you had a full eight hours or more sleep each night, and how much more you could get done in your day.

Con: A later school start will throw Australian cities into chaos and maybe even cause some parents to face consequences at work. The way things are now is fine, and there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken.

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Why Schools should Start Later for the Sake of Students’ Well-being

This essay is about the benefits of starting school later for students, emphasizing improvements in health, academic performance, and safety. It argues that adolescents’ natural sleep cycles require more rest, and early school start times lead to chronic sleep deprivation, negatively impacting cognitive function and mood. Research shows that later start times result in better grades and test scores due to increased alertness and engagement. Additionally, well-rested teens are less likely to be involved in car accidents, enhancing their safety. The essay also addresses potential challenges, such as disruptions to family schedules and extracurricular activities, and suggests solutions for a smooth transition to later start times.

How it works

The argument over when schools should start has heated up in recent years, with a growing number of scholars, parents, and educators supporting later start times. There are many strong arguments in favor of this reform, especially those that have to do with teenage health and academic achievement. We may gain a better understanding of why starting school later could significantly improve students’ lives by delving into these arguments and addressing the issues raised by a change in timetable.

Teenagers’ sleep habits are one of the best justifications for starting school later.

Teenagers and adults naturally have distinct sleep cycles from adolescents. They require more sleep and typically go to bed later. Early start hours for schools, however, conflict with these biological cycles, causing many teenagers to suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. This sleep deprivation can have a negative impact on their mood, memory, and cognitive skills. Based on studies, pupils are more likely to receive the appropriate amount of sleep when schools start later. This can improve their mental health overall, increase their ability to concentrate, and decrease absenteeism.

Beyond the health advantages, later starts are associated with higher academic achievement. Research indicates that students who get enough sleep exhibit higher levels of alertness and engagement during class. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, discovered that pupils in high school who enrolled later in the year achieved better test scores and grades than students who enrolled earlier. This is explained by increased information retention capacity, less drowsiness during the day, and improved attention. Students who get enough sleep are less prone to burn out and are more likely to engage in active learning in the classroom.

The advantages of starting school later extend beyond health and academics. There’s also a safety factor to consider. Sleep-deprived teenagers are at a higher risk of engaging in risky behaviors and being involved in accidents, especially while driving. In locations where school start times were moved back, there was a drop in car accidents involving teenage drivers, according to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This drop is largely because well-rested drivers are more alert and less prone to mistakes on the road. Therefore, shifting school start times could significantly impact student safety both in and out of school.

However, implementing later start times isn’t without its challenges. One major concern is the potential disruption to family schedules and after-school activities. Parents who depend on early school start times for childcare or work commitments might find a later start inconvenient. Additionally, extracurricular activities, sports practices, and part-time jobs typically occur after school, and a later start could push these activities further into the evening, leaving less time for homework and relaxation.

Despite these challenges, many schools that have moved to later start times have found ways to manage them. Adjusting bus schedules, coordinating with local businesses, and rearranging after-school activities can help accommodate the new start times. It’s crucial to engage the community and plan thoroughly to address these logistical issues and ensure a smooth transition. By involving parents, teachers, and students in the decision-making process, schools can develop strategies that meet everyone’s needs.

In summary, the argument for later school start times is backed by extensive research highlighting the benefits for students’ health, academic performance, and safety. While there are logistical challenges to consider, the potential positive outcomes make a strong case for reevaluating school schedules. By prioritizing the well-being and success of students, communities can create a more supportive learning environment and promote the overall development of young people.

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Should Your School Day Start Later?

If it did, would students get more sleep? Or would they just stay up later?

By Shannon Doyne

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Do you get enough sleep during the school year? If not, what keeps you from being well rested?

Do you wish your school day started later? In your opinion, what would be the advantages and drawbacks of a later start time?

In “ California Tells Schools to Start Later, Giving Teenagers More Sleep, ” Christine Hauser and Isabella Kwai write about a new California law that pushes back start times at most public middle and high schools. The law cites research that says attendance and performance will improve if teenagers get more sleep. The article states:

The passage of the law followed years of mounting calls for later school start times from sleep experts who said such a move would optimize learning, reduce tardiness and contribute to overall well-being. The law encourages districts to publish research on their websites about the impact of sleep deprivation on adolescents. A frequently cited policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, made in 2014, called insufficient sleep for adolescents a “public health issue” and recommended that most schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine agreed. In one 2006 poll from the National Sleep Foundation, 45 percent of adolescents in the United States said they slept for an insufficient length of time on school nights, and 19 percent of students said they fell asleep in school at least once a week. Another study, published in 2017 by the University of Minnesota, which surveyed 9,000 students across five school districts with varying start times, found that those who started school later slept more. Students who had more sleep reported better mental health outcomes and less use of substances like alcohol and cigarettes. Students who slept more also had improved attendance and enrollment rates, and they were less likely to drive while drowsy. About 90 percent of high schools and 80 percent of middle schools in the nation start before 8:30 a.m., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in 2014.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Do you feel like you get enough sleep?

What would be your ideal time to start the school day? What about to end the school day? Why?

How would changing your school’s start and end times affect activities like sports, clubs and part-time jobs?

Anthony J. Portantino, a Democratic state senator who wrote the bill, calls later start times for schools a “magic bullet” when it comes to education. What are your thoughts on this? Can later start times really improve things like test scores, attendance and graduation rates? Explain.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Schools shift as evidence mounts that later start times improve teens’ learning and well-being

Later school starts correlate with improved mood, better attendance and grades, and fewer car crashes among youth

• Schools and Classrooms

At a glance

• Research from psychologists and others indicates that later school times correlate with more sleep, better academic performance, and myriad mental and physical health benefits.
• Adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 should sleep 8 to 10 hours per day, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. But few are logging those hours.
• During puberty, youth undergo a shift in their circadian clocks that makes it harder for them to fall asleep until later in the night. Meanwhile, they can stay awake longer before experiencing an increase in the pressure to sleep.
• Pushing back school start times has added sleep benefits for teachers and parents, too.
• States and school districts are mandating later school start times in response to the scientific research.

Sleep is a key ingredient in physical and mental health, and most adolescents aren’t getting enough—but a straightforward solution is within reach. For decades, psychologists and other researchers have amassed evidence that later school start times can improve adolescents’ health and well-being. Emerging evidence suggests that pushing back the first bell can benefit teachers’ and parents’ sleep, too. Finally, that evidence is translating to broad shifts in policy.

In the past 25 years, more than 500 individual school districts in the United States have moved school start times later in response to the research, said Kyla Wahlstrom, PhD, an educational policy researcher at the University of Minnesota, who has been studying start times since the 1990s. But progress was piecemeal until 2014, when the American Academy of Pediatrics helped draw attention to the cause by publishing a position statement stating that middle schools and high schools should begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m. In 2019, California passed a law, enacted in 2022, mandating secondary schools start after 8:30 a.m. Florida passed a similar bill in 2023, and several other states are now considering such legislation.

Yet opposition to changing established start times can be surprisingly fierce. “There are always roadblocks. Change is hard,” said Lisa Meltzer, PhD, a pediatric sleep psychologist with Nyxeos Consulting and a professor at National Jewish Health in Denver. But the evidence is clear, she adds. “This is a systemic change that can really make a big difference for so many.”

Well-rested teens

Adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 should sleep 8 to 10 hours per day, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Few are logging those hours. Between 2009 and 2021, the percentage of high school students who did not get enough sleep increased from 69% to 77%, according to data from the CDC National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys . In 2021, nearly 70% of 9 th graders, and 83.5% of 12 th graders, failed to get enough sleep.

Many factors are at play in youth getting too little sleep, including heavy homework loads, overscheduled extracurriculars, and the irresistible lure of social media, which has been shown to impact adolescent sleep ( van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M., et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , Vol. 18, No. 3, 2021 ). Yet the biggest factors are biological. During puberty, youth undergo a shift in their circadian clocks. That shift makes it hard for teens to fall asleep until later in the night. Another factor at play is the sleep homeostatic system, which controls the rhythm of sleepiness and wakefulness. The longer you stay awake, the greater the pressure to sleep becomes. There’s evidence that during adolescence, that pressure takes longer to build. Those biological influences famously drive teens to sleep later in the morning. But even sleeping until noon on weekends isn’t enough to make up for the sleep deficit they accumulate night after night during the school week.

Neurological and psychological diagnoses only compound the problem. Sleep problems, including difficulties falling or staying asleep, are common in kids with autism and ADHD. Anxiety and depression can also skew sleep patterns. As rates of these conditions have increased, so has the number of kids coming to school bleary-eyed each morning. Pushing back start times has a direct impact on how much kids sleep. It’s no surprise that teens wake up later when their school day starts later. Notably, though, they tend to go to bed around the same time—resulting in more time under the covers, as Meltzer, Wahlstrom, and colleagues showed in a longitudinal study ( Sleep , Vol. 44, No. 7, 2021 ).

The downstream benefits are significant. One meta-analysis found that compared with students whose schools started between 8 a.m. and 8:29 a.m., those in schools starting between 8:30 a.m. and 8:59 a.m. had longer sleep duration, less negative mood, and better developmental outcomes including socioemotional health, cognitive development, behavioral health, and physical health ( Pediatrics , Vol. 149, No. 6, 2022 ). Another review found later start times were correlated with better attendance, less tardiness, less falling asleep in class, better grades, and fewer car crashes ( Wheaton, A. G., et al., Journal of School Health , Vol. 86, No. 5, 2016 ).

“Adolescent health is significantly improved by having later start times,” Wahlstrom said, with reductions in substance use, suicidality, and depression. “This isn’t a silver bullet to improve test scores. It’s a public health policy.”

Sleep for teachers and parents

Students aren’t the only ones to benefit from sleeping in. Meltzer and Wahlstrom found that after new school start times were implemented in a large suburban district near Denver, more parents of middle and high school students reported sufficient sleep duration, and fewer reported feeling tired ( Sleep Health , Vol. 8, No. 1, 2022 ). For their part, middle and high school teachers reported later wake times, increased sleep duration, and improved daytime functioning ( Journal of School Health , Vol. 93, No. 2, 2022 ). “The high school teachers said this profoundly changed their lives, allowing them to be a more effective teacher,” Wahlstrom said.

It’s an important finding, given that many educators report feeling overstressed and under-rested, said Michelle Perfect, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the University of Arizona and past president of APA Division 16 (School Psychology). Her research has found that inadequate sleep duration and poor sleep quality are common among teachers. In a study not yet published, she tested teachers’ performance on a decision-making task in the lab. On the first task, teachers with poor sleep performed similarly to those who were better rested. But with each subsequent trial, their skills slipped. “By the fifth trial, they were only a few points away [on average] from a score consistent with early-stage dementia,” she said. “Teachers are making decisions constantly as they manage their classrooms. You can imagine the teacher in a classroom for 8 hours getting more and more fatigued by doing simple tasks.”

Start time challenges

Despite the evidence that later start times have broad benefits, making the change can be complicated. To accommodate later starts for teenagers, most districts need to shift elementary start times earlier to balance busing schedules—a move that often gets pushback from families. In general, though, it’s easier for young kids to get used to going to bed and waking up earlier, since they don’t have the biological pressures of puberty fueling their sleep drive. Moreover, while teens benefit from later start times, elementary students don’t seem to suffer negative effects from earlier schedules, Meltzer said. “Their bedtimes are more adjustable.”

Families also have concerns about how new start times might impact after-school schedules. Districts may need to get creative, adjusting sports timetables when playing districts on different schedules and rearranging the child-care offerings available before and after school. But districts that have made the switch have risen to those challenges, Meltzer said, and her research shows that later start times haven’t been found to significantly interfere with teens participating in extracurricular activities or holding after-school jobs ( Frontiers in Sleep , Vol. 1, No. 1044457, 2022 ).

School start times alone won’t solve the problem of too many young people getting too little sleep. “We need to pay attention to both ends of the sleep cycle—what’s happening in the morning, but after school as well,” said Mary Carskadon, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior who studies circadian rhythms at Brown University. That can mean limiting sports and other activities in the evening, avoiding phone use at night, and making sure kids aren’t sacrificing sleep for homework.

Until society does a better job prioritizing sleep, Carskadon said, kids will continue to be under-rested. But in the meantime, changing school start times will be the single biggest way to help the greatest number of adolescents get the rest they need to thrive, Meltzer added. And research findings will continue to help school boards and governments get on board with the change. With more than 27,000 public and private secondary schools in the United States, those efforts will take time. But the impact of later school start times is evident, and youth deserve the chance for better health, Meltzer said. “There are problems that have to be solved, but they’re solvable. It can be done.”

Further reading

• Start School Later
• Pediatric sleep: Current knowledge, gaps, and opportunities for the future Reynolds, A. M., et al., Sleep 2023
• FastStats: Sleep in High School Students U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Starting School Later — School Start Times Should Be Later

School Start Times Should Be Later

• Categories: Starting School Later

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Words: 455 |

Published: Mar 1, 2019

Words: 455 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Why School Should Start Later (Persuasive Essay Sample)

Why school should start later.

School days are not supposed to start before 8.30 a.m. This fact is supported by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that links early school days to car accidents along the roads, depression among the young ones and increase in poor performances academically. Children struggle through the challenge of waking up very early in the morning so that they can be in class right on time. Research indicates that teens should get at least eight hours of night sleep for their good health. Various stakeholders such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Centers for Disease Control have the strong recommendation on why schools should start later. However, many districts have not received the recommendations well since the changes seem to be expensive and can cause serious disruption of normal schedules.

Schools are likely to report increased presence of children in class if the time of start is pushed beyond 8.30 in the morning. The best example is in Bonneville County, Idaho which has reported a drop of about 15% children absence in class after the institution of the changes. Other states such as California have state funding tied to class attendance. It, therefore, implies that more dollars will be sent to schools due to increased attendance. Cumulatively, an increase in class attendance will result in increased funding to schools hence more children accessing education at the basic level.

Another factor of importance is the grade performance of children which is directly affected by the hours of sleep. Various researchers have shown that children grades improve with an increase in hours of sleep which implies later time of starting school schedule. According to Finley Edwards who is an economist at Colby College, the math test and scores of reading increased by about 3 percentile points if the start time of school is delayed by one hour. Delaying the school’s starting time is, therefore, more efficient and easy way of improving performance when compared to other strategies.

Opponents of the proposal for delayed starting time believe that later starting time will cause children to miss classes at the day end attending to events of sports. The argument may be true but it fails to capture the fact that more sleep will result in decreased injuries to children as they play since their minds are fresh. Many of the injured children who participate in athletic activities miss classes and at the same time more than one week of playing. The injuries still add to the amount of money spent by schools and government in offering treatment. Increased hours of sleep happens to be an easy way of ensuring students are in class and on the field without missing any of them.

Besides, teens who do not get enough sleep have another problem of getting sleepy when driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration refers to such situation as an extreme danger that involves drowsy driving. Teens and young adults are mostly involved in these type of accidents which increases the safety concerns and premiums for insurance. According to the study by InsuranceQuotes.com in 2013, the rates in California increased to about 62% after just one claim for compensation. However, late start times for schools have indicated an improvement in the situation of safety on the roads.

Another important fact to face is that most teens who get little sleep are at risk of drug and abuse of alcohol, depression and even suicide cases. According to the report “Sleepless in Fairfax,” the difference of about one more hour to sleep decreases hopelessness, ideas of suicide and substance abuse among children. It is therefore a high time all states should adopt the changes for the benefit of children and young adults.