“I know it’s early, but you have to pay attention.” Everyone has heard this from a first period teacher, but imagine if that quote ceased to exist.

In fact, what if school didn’t start till a quarter to nine?

There would be no more drool on the desk, no more red imprints on sides of faces, and energy drink sales would slowly wane down the drain.

Studies show that starting at least one hour later would greatly benefit students.

If school began at 8:45 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. students would be more aware of what they are doing in early morning classes and have more energy to pay attention in afternoon classes.

A Brown University study shows teenagers are biologically “weird”. Teens don’t really get tired until midnight. Going to bed at midnight and starting school at 7:45 a.m. gives students approximately six and a half hours of sleep. But a teenage mind and body needs around nine hours of sleep to keep sober.

A big problem that occurs in early morning classes is students tend to pay less attention, and if they aren’t paying attention they don’t get a full mental lock on the subject that is being covered.

Later in the day, especially on Fridays, kids are practically dead. They are burnt out from the long day with no sleep. Some students have multiple honors and AP classes in one day and if they were better energized they would survive the day more easily.



The late start on Wednesday seem to give students more time to sleep in or catch up on homework but only about 30 minutes more. “You guys have it on Wednesday but you’re still tired…you have to go to bed earlier,” Spanish language teacher Anna Bradshaw said. That would be the logical thing to do – go to bed early. That would be easy if teenagers became tired at the same time everyone else did.

Forget the talk of trimesters and block schedules; I motion to consider a late start schedule. Academically speaking, starting school at a later time would improve grades. But, to start school later in the morning there has to be a trade off.

“I like it the way it is because it’s better to have a longer lunch so if I had to go to lunch intervention, not saying that I have to, I would have a long lunch to do it,” freshman Shane Sacolick said.

True, lunch time would be condensed, but if students are more attentive in the morning there wouldn’t be a need for lunch intervention.

Also, with a late start, extracurricular activities, such as sports, would lose an hour on light. Game schedules with other schools on a traditional schedule would have to be worked out and student athletes might miss their last period. “I’d like it, so we can sleep in. But maybe if they made the classes a little shorter so practices would be at 4,” sophomore Brianna Nelson said. Another problem would be bussing. It would interfere with elementary bus schedules and they would have to get more busses and that would cost money.

Despite some logistical challenges, people should really think about a late start schedule. If administration can look into starting school at a later time, maybe just for a week or two, they could see an improvement of student awareness.