School Start Times Research Paper

Katherine Otten Mrs. Rader 8th Grade Language 1 March 2024 School Start Times Exhausted, the student yawns in the middle of her test. That is what every student in the class is doing if school continues to start at 8:00 am. Throughout the day, children struggle to focus. The average start time for schools all around America is around 8:03 am. Tired, students are begging for more sleep. That is why schools should start later because it is better for the students’ mental and physical health, it increases physical activity, and it gives students and teachers more sleep. The first reason why later school time would be beneficial for many people is because it would help with both mental and physical health. According to “School Start Times” by Gale …show more content…
Bad physical health can lead to bad mental health. Mental health is important for students to achieve goals, especially academically. Another reason that school start times should be later is that it gives students and teachers more sleep in the morning. In paragraph one of “Sleepmore in Seattle,” it says, “Most teenagers are chronically sleep-deprived. One strategy proposed to lengthen adolescent sleep is to delay secondary school start times. This would allow students to wake up later without shifting their bedtime, which is biologically determined by the circadian clock, resulting in a net increase in sleep” (Gideon para 1). Minors are more likely to get more sleep if they don’t have to worry about waking up unnecessarily early. The student, who gets enough sleep, gets good grades. Students need more sleep according to their body clocks. The same article also states that “Attendance has been shown to improve and tardiness to decrease with later school start time in other school districts” (Gideon para 10). This evidence shows that when the school day started later, more students showed up to …show more content…
In paragraph 4 of “School Start Times,” it states, “Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have linked a lack of proper sleep with a decrease in physical activity and an increased likelihood of obesity” (“School” para 4). If school started later, kids would get more sleep during the night, which would help students become more physically active. I have had many times in the past year when I stayed up late or woke up too early. Because I don’t get enough sleep on some nights, my effort and energy is not as good as it should be. If school started later, I could have gotten more sleep on those nights when I had to stay up late, and that would have positively affected my effort and my energy. Now, you might be wondering how parents can get their kids to school every day without disrupting their work schedules. “To get kids to school, parents might have to be late to work.” “School Start Times” from Gale in Context says, “Moving school start time can also disrupt family schedules. For example, many parents also have work schedules that fit in with their children’s school start time” (“School” para

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