The Pros And Cons Of Secondary School Start Times

The fiery debate of secondary school start times, which has both government organizations and students weighing in, is causing schools to question the effectiveness of their current start times. Proponents of a late start are arguing the mental benefits for students, while opponents discuss the problems that could arise for budgets and after-school activities. However, the amount of change that would need to occur in order to delay start times far outweighs the pros for a postponed beginning. Presenting a later start time in order to fix the issue of tired teens, will, ironically, only create more problems; therefore schools must continue with their original times in order to maintain a well-balanced environment for their students to thrive …show more content…
Alice Park, an author at Time.com, wrote a 2016 article on the debate of school start times. She stated, “Having high school students start later may also have domino effects on..their extracurricular activities, including sports, which often occur after school…” (Park). However, sports***ask about collective*** isn’t the only issue. There are a variety of other after-school activities, ranging from drama to math teams. In fact, 79% of teens in secondary schools have been found to periodically be involved in these after-school activities. 57% of those kids participate in activities that are not related to their school (Scios). For that 57%, getting to their extracurriculars would be a challenge. Businesses outside of school do not adhere to the school schedule. Therefore, pushing back a school start time would push into those activities, causing teens to lose a valuable part of their life. If businesses do, instead, decide to change with the school, it could very well affect their income and revenue due to the fact that other classes of the business would have to be extended late into the night. As you can see, a late school start time would not only impact students, but also the community and local