Annie Ayres Ayres1

Tim Waggoner

English 1201

14 July 2020
How Would Moving the Start Time of Schools Back Affect Students?

Many schools in the United States start as early as between 7-7:45 am. Starting this early

comes with plenty of advantages and disadvantages. Would moving this time back even just an

hour make a difference for students or would it cause more problems than it solves?

When deciding whether or not the advantages outweigh the disadvantages experts agree

on a couple key points. Moving the start time of school back will have a variety of effects on

kids, families and even the teachers and it will be different for everyone. One of the main

reasons that moving school time back is a good idea is the idea that it will eliminate sleep

deprivation among teens. According to research by Science Advances, “students are only getting

about 6 hours and 50 min of sleep per night” (Anerson) when experts say the average kid needs

8-10 hours a night in order to manage the stress and tasks they are expected to perform on a daily

basis (Twery).

A few other key concepts that are also heavily emphasized in all of the articles is the

improvement in kids overall well being, grades and attentiveness during class. A study

performed by the National Sleep Foundation concluded that at least, “19 percent of students said

they fell asleep in school at least once a week.” (Doyne) That is a very high percentage

considering this is when kids are supposed to be engaging in classroom activities and learning

new information. As stated by the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services getting

enough sleep can help kids, “stay at a healthy weight, reduce stress, improve moods and get sick

less often.” (Twery) These benefits make the conversation of moving school start times back

worth it.
 Ayres 2

While all the articles agreed on the many benefits, there were disagreements on how

moving the start time back affects tardiness and after school activities. According to Danielle

Dreilinger’s article about the school in Fort Wayne's trial on moving school time back, “the

number of the students marked tardy declined, but the effect was temporary.” (Dreilinger) This

source is the only source to mention that the effect was temporary which would make moving

school times back not as productive. There are also a lot of disagreements on whether moving

the start time back will make kids more likely to participate in sports or whether the late start

times for practices and games just make the kids go to bed even later.

There is only one common misconception about school start times. This misconception

is that putting your kids to bed earlier will fix it. This is not true because kids' bodies are

designed to stay up a tad bit later and wake up a little bit later so they won’t be getting the restful

sleep they need.

In conclusion there are more advantages in moving the start time of school back but you

cannot just forget about the disadvantages. In order to be able to move the start time schools

would have to come up with solutions to some of these disadvantages. By researching more into

how to move the time back and what affects it will have I will be able to better answer my

question on how moving the start time of school back will affect students.

Work Cited
 Ayres 3

AASM, Staff. "American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM)." Gale Opposing

Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,

https://link-gale-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/QLDOYB084975176/OVIC?

u=dayt0401&sid=OVIC&xid=af489275. Accessed 10 July 2020.

Andersen, Casey. “Here's What Happens When School Starts Later.” NEA Today, 1 Mar.

2019, neatoday.org/2019/02/27/what-happens-when-schools-start-later/. 10 July

2020.

Dreilinger, Danielle. “How to Make School Start Later: Early-Morning High School

Clashes with Teenage Biology, But Change Is Hard.” Shibboleth Authentication

Request, Education Next, 2019, www.educationnext.org/journal/summer-2019-vol-

19-no-3/ .

Doyne, Shannon. “Should Your School Day Start Later?” The New York Times, 19 Oct.

2019. https://www.nytimes.com/ 11 July 2020.

Twery, Michael. “Get Enough Sleep.” Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion,

U.S Department of Health and Human Services, Aug. 2017,

health.gov/myhealthfinder/topics/everyday-healthy-living/mental-health-and-

relationships/get-enough-sleep.