The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends later start time

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle and high schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later to give students the opportunity to get the amount of sleep they need, but most American schools start too early. But I am not suggesting such a drastic change, I am presenting the idea that we simply push the start time of school back to 8:00 a.m. The list of benefits that this would provide is much longer than the cons. The schedule would remain the exact same in terms of time periods, just everything would be pushed back by 20 minutes.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that teenagers aged 13 to 18 years should regularly sleep 8 to 10 hours per day for good health. Teenagers who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, using illicit drugs, and perform poorly in school. During puberty, adolescents become more sleep deprived later in the evening and thus need to sleep later into the morning in order to get their recommended hours of sleep. School starting at 7:40 in the morning takes away that opportunity, pushing back the time by even 20 minutes gives students more time to sleep, gives them more time in the morning to get ready, and also gives students with younger siblings more time to drop them off at Harmon in the morning without worrying about being late and having to rush to school.

Rushing to school is potentially very dangerous and puts the student and passengers in the car at a much higher risk of an accident. There have been countless times where I have been late to school by only 1 minute, and I was still given a tardy. It was not due to running late or being sick or not wanting to be at school, it was because traffic was heavy and I had to drop off my younger siblings at Harmon, which takes anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, causing me to be late. Often times I have to make my brothers walk from the high school to the middle school in order for me to be on time.

Pushing back the start time of school by just 20 minutes would help solve all these problems. Students would not have to feel rushed and therefore would not have to drive dangerously and be at a higher risk of an accident. Students would not have to make their siblings walk across parking lots and fields just to get to school on time. The health benefits would also be great for the students, they would not be as tired all the time and it would show an increase in better grades across the school. It is a simple solution that has countless benefits.