Later Start Times

Schools have known for decades that adolescents need more sleep, so I wonder why our education system, with all its talk of equity and inclusion, have not adapted to meet the needs of teenaged students? Academic reviews of research have clearly shown that insufficient sleep among adolescents leads to lower cognitive performance, lack of attention, more absences from school, moodiness, and depression. Some researchers, including a team led by Amy Wolfson, have explicitly examined the connection between better sleep and later school start times.  Wolfson's team concluded, in the Journal of Behavioral Sleep Medicine that "adolescents attending a later starting school report more total sleep, later wake times, less daytime sleepiness, fewer sleep–wake behavior problems, and less tardiness in comparison to their peers attending schools with earlier start times (Wolfson, 2007). Researchers have also investigated late starts from an equity perspective. An article in the American Journal of Public Health, asserted that the conflict between early school start times and adolescent sleep "represents an issue of social justice, potentially contributing to troubling racial/ethnic and socio-economic disparities in sleep health and associated downstream consequences." (Hale and Troxel, 2012).

 

Personally, I understand that the research isn't complete yet, but it seems to me that it may not help, but it certainly won't hurt to have high school students start their day a little later. As my own experience in competitive sports, starting training at noon on a Saturday was beneficial because I would arrive well- rested. Ultimately, despite decades of research, many unanswered questions remain.

 

Kyra @ NU 

References

Hale, Lauren, and Wendy Troxel. "Embracing the School Start Later Movement: Adolescent Sleep Deprivation as a Public Health and Social Justice Problem." US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, vol. 108, no. 5, May 2018, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304381.

 

Wolfson, Amy. "Middle School Start Times: The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep for Young Adolescents." Behavioural Medicine of Sleep, vol. 5, no. 3, 5 Dec. 2007, pp. 194-209, doi:10.1080/15402000701263809.