Why School Should Start Later Essay

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The Congress hereby finds and declares that busy students, particularly in high school and college, tend to sleep very late whether it is to finish their school work, or just pure procrastination like playing video games. At any rate, school schedule is affecting teens’ performances at schools and their everyday life as the lack of sleep causes serious health problems for teens. Teens are required to have a minimum of eight hours of sleep in order to perform and comprehend well in school. During adolescence, youngsters hate waking up early and like to sleep late during the night. As a result, they are likely to sleep in class or skip school due to their fatigue. U.S. schools should change the schedules of when school starts and ends to ensure teens can be at their best …show more content…
The lack of sleep creates many major issues on teen’s life, such as changes in mood and behavior that negatively affect teens in their daily routine, as well as the people that they interact with. They also increased risk of obesity and bad eating habits. To function well, teens are required to have eight to nine hours of sleep every night. However, two-thirds of students in the United States sleep less than eight hours, according to the latest annual Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance study. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that schools should be delayed until 8:30 for teens to have more sleep, as doing so would allow students to align their natural sleep rhythm with the school schedule. But currently, only about 15% of schools start at 8:30 or later. Teens could not be forced to sleep earlier at night because their inner body clock changes when they reach adolescence causing their tiredness to build up slower. Although 30 minutes does not seem like much, but by pushing it back 30

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