Does School Start Too Early?

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)

Cranky teenagers aren’t the only ones who think school should start later in the morning.

Many influential scientists agree with them.

Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, be overweight and underperform academically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. The center recommends at least 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, and that schools should start at 8:30 a.m. at the earliest.

But that’s not exactly happening across America.

Later start times are facing battles from school boards over logistical and financial issues. Fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States begin classes later than 8:30, according to a study released Thursday by the CDC that has given supporters of later start times additional ammo for their fight.

“Clearly, the decisions are not made based on students’ health and safety and academics so much as things like bus schedules and other factors like that,” Anne Wheaton, author of the CDC study, told Patch.

The 8:30 start comes from the recommended sleep time for adolescents combined with a pubescent effect as common as pimples, body odor and angst — a change in natural sleep patterns that pushes back what scientists refer to as the circadian rhythm.

“That delay on your internal clock is one of the earliest signs of puberty. It makes it really difficult for the teenager to fall asleep before 11 o’clock,” Wheaton said. “If you try to go to bed by 11, and get the adequate amount of sleep, then you push school start times back until 8:30.”

In 2014 ,the American Academy of Pediatrics urged schools to adopt start times of 8:30 a.m. at the earliest.

Some schools changed right away. Most didn’t.

One of the most vocal opponents of later start times has been Ted Velkoff, Member At Large of the Fairfax County School District which, at more than 180,000 students, is the largest district in Virginia and the Baltimore-Washington metro area.

Velkoff wrote an op-ed in USA Today last year criticizing the academy’s policy recommendation.

“The problem is not really that kids need more sleep — because of course they do; adults need more sleep,” Velkoff told Patch on Friday. “The problem is trying to run a large organization that has many competing concerns.

“We at the school board have to factor in many more things than just the science of sleep.”

The biggest and seemingly most oft-cited factor? Buses.

Pushing school back for middle or high schools in most cases means more buses on the road for more hours of the day.

A proposal in Fairfax County to push high school start times from 7:20 to 8 included an estimate that transportation costs would go up $7.5 million.

Others argue, though, that the complexities of figuring out affordable transportation is worth the gain to student health.

“It’s worth it for adults to tackle a bus schedule,” Stacy Simera, Outreach Director at Start School Later, a nonprofit advocacy group, told Patch.

“The logistics may be daunting at first, but then you adopt it for the next 20 years. Child health should be worth adults’ temporary inconvenience.”

In a twist of irony, Velkoff ended up voting for a proposal to begin school later, but at 8, not 8:30 or 9 as other board members proposed. The 8 o’clock start passed.

Many districts are finding ways to make it work, and in some cases, even saving money in the process.

Chicago Public Schools decided recently to make a change, taking the later starting time about as far as it could.

Elementary schools and high schools had been starting at the same time of morning. Rather than tinker with that schedule, many of the city’s high schools will soon start as late as 9 a.m, staggering bus schedules and routes.

The move is expected to save the transportation system $13.5 million in its first year.

It’s not just schools that are taking notice of the latest research in sleep. The effects have reached even the biggest and baddest of America.

The U.S. Navy last April changed its shift-times on submarines from six hours to eight hours to allow for more sleep. The U.S. Army is advising its squad leaders that seven to eight hours of sleep per night “must become a daily priority for you and your soldiers.”

“If any entity could figure out a way to create a person that does not need sleep, you know the U.S. Armed Forces have tried for hundreds of years,” Simera said.

“When the Army says, ‘hey you need sleep,’ that means they’ve realized you can’t get by.”