Should School Start Later?

What if you weren’t so tired in school? Imagine feeling energized and refreshed, ready to learn with your classmates all around you, happily talking about class and catching up with each other. School could be so much better. Therefore, the question is-- should schools have later starting times? In “Should School Start Later?” by Justin O’Neill, “Sleepy Teens: High School Should Start Later in the Morning” by Mark Fischetti, and “Hey You! Wake Up!” by Matthew Hutson, schools all over America are split on the topic of making their start time later. While some experts say that a later starting time is better for the school and students, some argue that it is definitely not. Teenagers need about nine hours of sleep a night, but on weekdays, only about 14 percent of them get the amount of sleep that they need. To solve that problem, some schools are looking at a later starting …show more content…
Even though some say that with the extra time to sleep students won’t be studying as much, many studies show just the opposite. Information shows that test scores significantly rise when students get the correct amount of sleep. O’Neill says, “One 2012 study found that middle schoolers’ test scores rose in reading and math,” (O’Neill 20). From this quote, it is definite that when school starts later, school performance improves. Additionally, some more research shows that when school began at 8:35, grades in almost all subjects rose. Fischetti writes, “A study released in February that tracked 9,000 high school students in three states show that grades in science, math, English, and social studies all rose when school began at 8:35 or later,” (Fischetti). Students all over America could be doing better in school if we only just let them get the amount of sleep that they need. In conclusion, the reader can see that there is factual proof that a later school start times helps academically, and also