Persuasive Essay: When Should High School Start Later?

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For students to be able to show full attention during school, they obviously have to have to be healthy. If a teen is unhealthy how would someone to expect them to be able to focus on school work. Teens have lately been unhealthy due to being extremely sleep deprived. With schools starting as early in the day as they do teens do not have the chance to get the 8-9 hours of sleep their bodies require. High schools should start later in the day to keep students healthy and alert in class, to follow teens biological clock, and for safety while driving to school.
Contention: Students all over have been extremely sleep deprived due to early school start times. How would you feel if you knew your child was becoming sleep deprived and unhealthy due
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You will finally get your license, a new driver, driving to school every morning before school. Driving can be scary at any age but what about a new 16 year old driver who is extremely sleep deprived and could fall asleep at the wheel at any moment. Does that make you feel safe? “Combining inexperience with sleepiness and a tendency to drive at night puts young people at risk, especially males aged 16-25 years” (Facts About Drowsy Driving 1). In the quote about above it talks about how with teens being inexperienced and tired at night it will put teens at a much higher risk than adults. But yet, we still send teens out early in the morning in the pitch black to drive to school. “Teens need to log a little more than nine hours of sleep per night to achieve the optimal level of daytime alertness needed to eliminate the risk of drowsy driving” (Drowsy Driving/Fatigue 1). Some teens only get about 6 hours or fewer on school nights (Mckibben 1). With out teens getting the full amount of sleep they need we are risking have them get in more car accidents due to drowsy driving. Is having school start this early really worth risking teens lives? The main focus schools should be looking at is students education and students safety, not trying to get out of school earlier in the

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