This article explains why schools should start later, and has facts to back it up. Many tweens and teens tend to be night owls, but they hate up get up earlier than 11:00, much less 6:00. The average middle-schooler needs 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep to be fully charged and not a zombie looking for coffee like it is gold. A national sleep poll discovered more than 25% of students fall asleep once a week. It is pitiful if a quarter of kids are dropping like rocks in the middle of class. Anne Wheaton and her colleagues found that the average time the school bell dings is an 8:03. The latest the bell should be ringing is 8:30, which is also too early for the average teen. Louisiana started at a mind-blowing time of 7:40! That is nearly an hour before
