School Should Start Later Essay

Superior Essays
Students staying awake until late hours of the night and getting up early for school has caused grades and performances to drop. Teenagers get an average of six to seven hours of sleep instead of the recommended eight to ten amount. In the article written by Maggie Fox, “U.S. Schools Kids Start Too Early,” she claims that lack of sleep and early school starting hours cause students to perform poorly and participate in illegal activity. I agree that schools need to start later, but I disagree about the changed start time.
In the article, Fox argues that schools need to start later, and she discusses the effects from lack of sleep. She cites that “the average start time is 8:03.” Students--especially teenagers--have problems getting the recommended amount of eight to ten hours of sleep. They cannot help but stay up late because of all the distractions available to students. Phones, television, and other aspects prevent students from wanting to go to bed earlier. Even puberty has a play on how students stay up later than recommended. According to the article, “Less than
…show more content…
20 minutes would not have any effect on students’ sleeping habits. School could even extend an hour later--if needed--if they pushed back the starting time. Schools cannot think students will go to bed earlier because it is not gonna happen. School needs to start later. I think it would increase students’ academic performances and would help them behave better. There would be less grumpy students walking around if they have the chance to get more sleep.
Many students probably agree with this article’s viewpoint, and I am one of those students who agrees. It is time that schools start later. A change needs to be made because students need the extra sleep. Grades would increase. Activity in class would increase. The overall performance in students would change. Schools should take Fox’s advice and make a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    I believe that school days should have a later start time for the sake of teens. The lack of sleep affects teens in many major ways, such as, obesity, depression and an overall lower quality of life comes from the lack of sleep and early start times in schools. Kids are recommended between 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep every night to be able to function both physically and mentally. Researchers that studied students from eight different schools have found there is a major increase in attendance, test scores, and overall grades when school started later. They also saw a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse, and depression.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Starting later in the morning will mean teens can get the adequate amount of sleep, better grades, and overall better health. With 60% of teens complaining about being tired during the school day it’s pretty obvious they aren’t getting enough sleep. The average teen needs at least eight to ten hours of sleep every night, however, very few actually get that much sleep. A teenagers biological clock naturally makes them stay up later and wake up later, but when schools are starting as early as seven a.m. it’s going against what their bodies naturally want to do. When schools have pushed back the start time in the morning they have found teens are less likely to become tires throughout the day.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This would only be more harmful, even if it meant getting to leave school earlier. It is just too hard to concentrate after not getting enough sleep and getting up too early in the morning for kids and teenagers. School should start later because kids need more sleep to keep their attention span up so they will be able to learn and do better academically. There is too many activities after school and too much homework in order to be able to go to sleep early every night and get good sleep. To go to bed late and get up early in the morning can also make kids and teenagers more prone to getting sick.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teachers noticed a change from 2-3 letter grade differences than the year before. In fact, even the AAP (american academy of pediatrics) recommend that school should start no earlier than 8:30. Starting school before 8 is causing students to lose to big of a chunk of REM sleep. According to polysomnographers this is the most important stage of sleep if this is stripped away from them, people can experience changes in behavior which leads to them causing trouble in school. So why does school start early?…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to the junior scholastic ,kids articles and books that everyone reads, quotes “To get plenty of zzz’s, experts recommend that kids limit their use of electronic devices at night.” This is stating that if the students are off their electronics for a unquestionable amount of time then the students will be able to sleep better. Furthermore if you go to bed at an earlier time, then you will be able to be awake better and ready for school but with all those kids that go to bed between ten and three a clock the students are not getting the right amount of sleep. In comparison, it would disrupt the after school activities. According to should schools start later. Quotes “a later start, say opponents, also interferes with somm teens’ part-time jobs and disrupts after-school sports and clubs.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Schools should be starting later in the day, rather than early in the morning. Parents are constantly waking their child up every morning for them to get ready for school. Kids eventually get annoyed of being waking up continuously so they have an annoyed mood for the day. Schools should be starting later in the day because, students have the urge to sleep in class, fully rested students have better memory, and later school starting times show improvement in performances.should To begin with, schools should start later in the day because, students have the urge to sleep in class. James Mass, a lead expert of sleep says, “ Trying to educate teenagers so early in the morning does no good.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Students report getting less sleep than they need from about the age of 13 years” ( Onyper et al). A very large portion of students need to wake up at 6:30 to be at school on time, which means in order to get enough sleep, the teen would have to be asleep by 9 p.m. As a result of the circadian clock in teenagers’ brains, it’s almost not possible for adolescents to be asleep that early. The U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, even thinks that schools should adopt later start times (Blad). With all of this evidence that schools start too early there are still very few schools that begin the school day after 8:30 a.m. “Forty-two states reported that 75%-100% of their public schools had…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Again it’s all because of not getting enough sleep. For example, teens are busy studying for tests until 1 or 2 am and are getting very stressed because students know that there going to have to get up early. Researcher Emily Richmond states, “Sleep deprivations impacts include depression, anxiety, and mood swings.” The students won’t even get to properly focus on the test. He or she will be sleepier then focusing on the test. As a matter of fact, even if there is no test the next day and are still awake, it is very unhealthy and can cause health problems.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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.…

    • 1360 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The reasons why some middle school and high school students can’t get enough sleep is because they stay up late watching tv, playing video games, surfing the Internet and the like. This problem can be solved by parents giving their child strict rules about how long they can stay up at night. But some parents don’t usually do that, and just let their kids do what they want to do. Well, there are also parents who actually do that, but some kids can be rebels (like me, for example) and not actually follow the rules. Sometimes, it’s the student’s fault why they can’t get enough sleep.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics