School starting later has been studied and shows that there are many benefits for students and teachers alike. These benefits include improved health, academic success, and saving lives.
Woodhaven High School should move the school starting time to 9 AM because of the health benefits, improved focus, better grades, and fewer drowsy drivers on the road.
According to students at Woodhaven High School, 84% of students feel tired throughout the day and 90% believe school should start later. The most common start time that students felt would be better was around 9 AM.
Moving the school’s starting time to later in the day provides many health benefits. Studies have shown links between a lack of sleep and obesity, diabetes, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The hormones in teenagers are likely the result of this. When sleeping, the growth hormone is released and if you are not getting any sleep you will not release enough of it. This is called sleep deprivation
This can improve the health of students at Woodhaven High School and just in general improve the atmosphere and social aspect of the school.
Later start times show links to more academic success. 2 schools in Seattle moved their start time to around an hour later and recorded their results. The student’s amount of sleep increased by an average of 34 minutes and their final grades were 4.5% higher. This shows that starting school later shows a correlation with getting better grades. Also with more rest, it allowed them to be on time more consistently with an increased amount of rest.
If Woodhaven were to move to a later start time, the students would have more academic success and be more engaged in their classes.
Lastly, starting schools later reduces the risk of car accidents and injuries. According to studies, delaying school start time leads to a drop in car crash rates significantly. Drowsy driving causes nearly 1,000 fatalities per year.
Driving while tired has many consequences such as a slower reaction time and could lead to falling asleep behind the wheel. Starting school later could reduce all of these risks, as shown by the students getting more sleep in the study with the schools in Seattle, and allow students to commute to school safely.
Woodhaven could help prevent these tragedies from happening by moving the start time later.
People may not want school to start later because it is a huge amount of work for the school staff to change the start time and it will be more difficult to schedule sports practices and other extracurricular activities.
These do not outweigh the benefits of school starting later because the work is worth it for the safety and overall well-being of the students and many sports facilities are now getting lights around them so they can practice even when the sun goes down.
Also if the start time was just moved back an hour, scheduling after-school activities would not be too difficult because there is still a lot of time after school.
The delay of Woodhaven High School’s start time would lead to improved grades, higher attendance rates, more engagement in lessons, lower car crash rates, and an overall better student life.
