Persuasive Essay: School Should Start Later

E., who is in tenth grade, stayed up until 1 a.m. finishing her English and French homework. The next morning, she had to wake up at 6 a.m. to get to school. E. felt very drained and did not have any energy to go to school. Surprisingly, three out of four students in high school experience this, getting less than eight hours of sleep per night. Overall, all middle and high schools should start at 8:30 a.m. or later because of the sleep that teenagers require. 

First of all, teenagers who are sleep deprived have to wake up earlier, leaving them with tiredness all day. Many students stay up late and wake up early in the morning for school. In an article published by the Stanford Medical News Center, it was proven that, “... teens have a biological tendency to go to sleep later… Yet, when they enter their high school years, they find themselves at schools that typically start the day at a relatively early hour” (Richter). Therefore, it's been established that teenagers go to sleep later, but they aren’t allowed to sleep later because of school times . When these students are sleep deprived, they are more likely to develop mental illnesses and start to decline in academic excellence. If schools started at 8:30 a.m. or later, students would be able to get the sleep they need. In an article published by The New York Times, a study showed that, “Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve…” (Nicholls).  To clarify, when schools change to a later time, teenagers end up with positive effects in school. Teenagers were more motivated and in the right mind to work once they got the sleep they needed. Also, teenagers were well rested, causing them to attend school and excel in their classes. Thus, having an early start time will cause teenagers to face multiple struggles due to sleep deprivation.

Second, teenagers are biologically wired to stay up late and wake up late, but early school times interfere with this. Most teenagers find themselves going to bed around midnight after having countless hours of homework. This does not allow students to get enough sleep before school. High school start times are usually around 7- 7:30 a.m. although, “Prying a teenager out of bed at 6 a.m. is the equivalent of waking an adult at 4 a.m.” (Nicholls). To put this into perspective, every day, many teenagers feel this fatigue from the very start of their morning, till the moment they are done with school and homework. An adult would have a hard time waking up at 4 a.m. every morning and having 8 hours of work. A later start time is needed so the teenagers can feel prepared for the day of school. Additionally, teenagers are awake a lot of the night working on school work, “As a result, the average teenager cannot fall asleep until 11:00 p.m. and would do best waking up at 8:00 a.m. or even later,” (Suni). As a result, moving school times back, and letting students sleep later will help them in the long run. When teens wake up too early, it makes it hard for them to concentrate and digest the information they are learning. It is suggested that teenagers get eight to ten hours of sleep per night, and moving school times to 8:30 a.m. would let teens get nine hours of sleep if they go to bed at eleven and wake up at eight. Therefore, students would be rested and ready for the day. In conclusion, teenagers need an ample amount of time to sleep for a school day.

Equally important, sleep deprivation caused by school can also cause negative physical consequences. When teenagers don’t get the right amount of sleep, they often feel fatigued and out of energy. It was shown that, “Adolescents who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression…” (School Starts). It seems clear from this that when teens are sleep deprived, they don't have the energy or motivation to get physical activity each day. Along with this, at night teenagers have food constantly available, leading to a higher calorie intake. This, in turn, leads to obesity which could cause health issues in the future. Sleep deprivation is not only present in high schoolers, but also middle schoolers. “Nearly 60% of middle schoolers don’t get enough sleep on school nights. For high schoolers, that number is over 70%” (Suni). Simply stated, students who are sleep deprived in middle school won’t be set up for success in high school because of the habit they've made with sleep. Middle school students would also have a tendency for bad grades which would carry on to high school as they grow up. Schools should start later, as it would set their students up for success in the future. As well as helping them maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Many people say that having later start times would hinder people's schedules. As an example, parents who work would need to find ways for their children to get to and from school. Another argument is that students have very little time after school for studying or tutoring. Although these claims are true, changing the start time would greatly benefit the students, outweighing the consequences greatly by letting them sleep longer. A school collected useful data, “I shifted the high school's start time from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. … students reported feeling less depressed and less sleepy during the day” (Suni). Given this example, teenagers were greatly affected by the school time. Once teenagers are able to get the rest they need, school will be much easier for them. Once the time is changed, it will take a little bit of time to adapt, but the results are worth it. Teenagers will have a better association with school, and will end up with a healthier lifestyle.  To conclude, even with the few consequences of a later school time, it is all worth it because it would benefit students in many ways. 

The logical conclusion is that teenagers need at least 8 hours of sleep, so schools should start at 8:30 a.m. or later. All in all, teenagers face many consequences, both mentally and physically, due to early school and sleep deprivation. Along with that, waking up early for school is unnatural for teenagers. Even though family schedules might get messed up, the change is worth the extra hours of sleep a teenager can get. Thus, all schools should change their start time to 8:30 a.m. or later to give your students the extra hours of sleep they need!