The Pros And Cons Of Later School Start Times
Sleeping in has long been a thought in ever teens’ mind. As teens growth and develop, their sleep patterns change. Teens usually stay up later and get up later, making later school times more appealing. Changing school times offers many benefits such as preventing mood changes, improves academic performance, and reduces car crashes. However, it also has its drawbacks like interfering with parent work schedules, conflicting with extracurriculars, and tampers with transportation logistics.
First and foremost, schools should start later in the day because it helps to prevent fewer mood changes. As a result of students getting up early in the morning, they suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can make you emotional, cranky, and overall, just moody. Not only that, but it can lead to anxiety or depression which can be a long-term effect. Delaying the start time for schools can reduce these symptoms.
Furthermore, it can improve academic performance. The effect of sleep deprivation can have detrimental impacts on a student’s academic performance. A lack of sleep can cause you to lose concentration easily, therefore creating attention deficits. Not only that, but it can impair your judgement, causes you to forget things easily, slows your reaction time, and causes you to get distracted frequently. It is no mystery that people who are sleep deprived are more inclined to errors. Subsequently, this can devastate a student’s test scores. Not only that, but their overall performance in the class. For example, projects and class assignments. Attempting to educate students so early in the morning is a futile attempt at best. It doesn’t matter how appealing a class can be, the fact is that sleep deprivation outweighs this fact. The fact of the matter is simple; that sleep deprivation still impairs attentiveness, memory, and comprehension.
In addition to this, it can reduce teen crashes. Drowsiness plays an essential role in how a teen behaves on the road. Driving while tired delays your reaction time and impairs your concentration on the road. Many teens are prone to this due to the early start times for schools. It can also put you in a state of microsleep. This can happen when a person is tired and remains awake. A teen is put in harms’ way as it can happen anytime around the wheel when someone is tired. It can last between a fraction of a second anywhere up to 10 seconds. A lot can happen in those 10 seconds that you fall asleep behind the wheel. For some, they can wake up on time, however some aren’t so lucky. They can either get into a car crash or worst comes to worst, even lose their lives. Moving the start times of schooling can give teens enough time to get the proper amount of sleep that they need.
In contrast, it can interfere with parent work schedules. Most parents drive their kids to school before heading off to work. If schools were to adjust their start time, then this would no longer be possible as it would create a conflict with a parents’ work schedule. This is due to the fact that their parent won’t be able to take them to school and make it to work on time. This is a problem especially for kids who attend elementary and middle school as they need someone to supervise them as they get ready. As you reach high school, it demands more responsibility on them as they have to wake up on time, make breakfast, and catch the bus on time. This can put a lot of pressure on one, ultimately creating a realm of anxiety defeating your claim on schools starting later prevents mood changes.
On the contrary, schools should not start later in the day as it can affect your extracurricular activities. Students who are apart of clubs, sports, and other organizations tend to take time after school to be apart of these fellowships. If schools change their start times, these activities will be pushed back. This can be problematic as it would put students in a difficult situation in regards to homework. Students who participate in such organizations will have a hard time fitting in time for homework, studying for tests, hanging out with friends, and still get a reasonable amount of sleep. This can cause students to get overwhelmed ultimately diminishing your claim on schools starting later increases academic performance.
Alternatively, it can tamper with transportation logistics. Many schools use the same bus to transport students to their designated schools. Usually, bus drivers pick up students for one school and then another. Delaying school times would affect their schedule. The pressure the bus driver will be put under to pick up and drop off students and still make it to the other bus stop locations for other schools will be a lot to bare. They would most likely rush and neglect to look at traffic ultimately creating car crashes. This in tern reduces your contention of starting schools later reduces teen crashes.
In conclusion, changing school times offers making benefits such as preventing mood changes, improves academic performance, and reduces car crashes. However, it also has its drawbacks like interfering with parent work schedules, conflicting with extracurriculars, and tampers with transportation logistics. When adjusting school times, we have to look at all sides of the spectrum and not just one.
