In our school, many students complain daily about how tired they are, mainly because teenagers need nine hours of sleep each night, and most of us get much less than that. In some schools, 20% of high school students fall asleep in class due to lack of sleep. Some say that this is an issue that could easily be solved by teenagers going to bed earlier, but that is not always a possibility. Factors like homework and after-school activities push the time that teenagers go to bed later. “The average adolescent has difficulty falling asleep before 11 p.m.,” says Dr. Owens, a doctor at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence. That means that an ideal wake-up time would be 8 a.m.

  Some school districts have delayed the opening of the school day, and tracked the effect this has on students. A Minneapolis school district changed it’s start time from 7:20 to 8:40 AM, and the results showed that students benefited from the change, as well as parents and teachers. Teachers at the school said that students were more alert and ready for learning, and parents of the students at the school said that teenagers were easier to live with because their emotions were more balanced. Over 80 school districts around the nation have made the change. In a Kentucky school, they decided to flip the elementary school start time with the High School start time, because younger children typically aren’t tired in the early morning, unlike most teenagers. The school district supervisor says that the change had a big impact on the high school. “We found that our students were more on time and in better attendance to first period than they had been in the past,” she says in an interview with NPR radio station.
  In 2008, officials at St. George’s School, a boarding school in Newport, Rhode Island, led a study to see whether or not shifting the start time a half hour later would have a positive impact. During the winter term, the start time was delayed by 30 minutes. The number of students who reported getting at least eight hours of sleep increased from 17% to 54%. At the same time, reported "daytime sleepiness" fell from 49% to 20%. The moods of students also improved greatly. Studies have revealed that some effects of sleep deprivation on teens are irritability, headaches, stress, obesity, and depression.

  So why doesn’t every school do this? Well, a major obstacle in changing the start time is the cost and scheduling of the buses. In an Iowa school district, however, they were actually able to reduce the number of buses needed by changing the start times of all three parts of their school system. Another challenge that some school districts struggle with is the after-school sports schedules, and how they would be affected by a later start time. However, at a school district in Minnesota, they found a solution. High School students agreed to shorten the number of minutes they take to get from one class to another. This allowed schools to start later, but to end at the same time, causing no change in sports schedules. Parents of students in this school were surveyed, and they supported this decision, 5 to 1.
  Now the question is, will New Hope make the switch? When asked if changing the school start time to 8:30 is a good idea, Maggie Czupich, and many other students, said yes. “It’s way too early, and I have a hard time listening in the morning,” she says. Mr. McLaughlin also said that it was a good idea, but only if we eliminated lunch and had the students bring in their own snacks.

  The idea has many pros and cons, but it is something that many believe should be taken into consideration. Although this would require some adjustments to our daily schedule, it may be a good way of helping our students be more alert in school, leading to a better learning experience.