During the first few minutes of the school day, many students are too busy struggling to keep their eyes open to even think about taking notes or listening to the lecture.
Nearly one in three students report either falling asleep or having trouble staying awake during first period, according to a recent Bark survey.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently recommended that schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. in order to align school schedules with the biological clocks of teens’ bodies so they can get a sufficient amount of sleep.
The AAP recommendation cites rampant sleep deprivation throughout the country and states the many negative effects of sleep deprivation, which range from mental health problems such as increased risk of depression to physical effects such as poorer reflexes and a higher risk of car accidents.
“The key would be to really push these school start times later and make sure these kids are getting enough sleep,” said Cora Breuner MD, MPH. Breuner co-authored the AAP policy statement and is a professor of Adolescent Medicine at the University of Washington. “You’ll be able to see there’s a huge difference before and after changing school start times in the ability of kids to improve their school performance, be less depressed, and attend school more regularly.”
A Texas A&M study that showed that students in Chicago public high schools achieved significantly lower grades in their first period classes than they did in the rest of the day.
But the implications of a lack of sleep go beyond a reduction in grades.
One National Institutes of Health study of a high school in the suburb of Fairfax County, Virginia found that just one hour less of weekday sleep was associated with a greater risk of feeling hopeless, seriously considering or attempting suicide, and substance abuse.
On the flip side, students at a boarding school who had their school start time pushed from 8:00 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. had significant improvements in sleep duration, reduction of daytime sleepiness, better mood, and lower caffeine use, according to a study published by The Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. The percentage of students getting eight or more hours of sleep on a school night increased dramatically after the school start time shift, from 18 percent when school began at 8:00 a.m. to 44 percent with an 8:25 a.m. start time.
Sleep deprivation can affect more than just mental health. Breuner noted that car accident rates are lower in school districts with later start times.
A study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information showed that the rate of teen automobile accidents dropped 16.5 percent in a county that had delayed the school start time, whereas the state average increased 7.8 percent.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states that a person who hasn’t slept for 18 hours will have the cognitive impairment equivalent to having a blood alcohol content of .05 percent, and after 24 hours awake, that number rises to .10 percent, which is higher than the legal driving limit.
“There are as many [car] crashes every year from drowsy driving and drunk driving, and the two should be considered equally dangerous,” said Stanford University Sleep Medicine Fellow Michelle Jonelis, MD.
The CDC estimates that up to 6,000 fatal crashes occur each year due to drowsy driving, and drivers below the age of 25 are involved in more than half of the 100,000 estimated fatigue-related police-reported crashes, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Another CDC report showed that 4.2 percent of adults have fallen asleep while driving in the past 30 days.
“In the past, we’ve looked at school start times as a school-related concern and haven’t really tied that to sleep deprivation. Clearly, if you deprive someone of enough sleep they do eventually have health issues that are irreversible,” Breuner said, noting heart disease among other diseases that are associated with chronic sleep deprivation.
Coupled with early school start times, the inability of teens to fall asleep at an early hour is a recipe for chronic sleep restriction, a form of sleep deprivation that occurs over a period of months or longer.
“I think the most striking thing is that it really is hard for teenagers to get the amount of sleep that they need with the schools starting early because they do have a hard time falling asleep early to get the necessary eight to nine hours,” Jonelis said, adding that the recommended amount of sleep isn’t universal, as many teens require more than nine hours.
But changing the start time may not be easy, as extracurricular activities would have to change their start times as well. Students who are already missing a chunk of the their seventh period to play sports would have to leave even earlier from school.
“If we change our schedule so we start at 8:30 a.m. but all of the other teams that we play don’t, and the athletic events start at the same time, then all we’re doing is pushing it so that more students miss more school time at the end of the day when they have athletic events to go to,” said Principal David Sondheim. “We know that the more students can sleep in the morning the better.”
Sondheim suggested that a change would have to be made in the greater community or state so that Redwood’s sports teams aren’t at a disadvantage, but noted that if sports practices were pushed later, the darkness could prevent them from running later since fewer hours of daylight would remain after school.
Breuner offered another perspective on the implications of adjusting the school start time.
“There’s some concern that it would be very expensive to shift the school start times with changing bus routes and after-school activities, but in the school districts where it has already happened, they did not find that it was very expensive and that after-school activities needed to be shifted,” Breuner said. “Childcare arrangements could be changed.”
Jonelis mentioned the misconception that teens will go to bed later if given the chance to wake up later.
“One of the arguments against pushing the school start time later is that teens will go to bed later, they’ll just stay up later, but that doesn’t really happen,” Jonelis said. “If you delay the school start time, the teens end up getting more sleep.”
“My hope is that this sparks a conversation, and that maybe a district will be the leader, and say, ‘We’re going to do it, and if we can’t play you in sports, sorry,’ and then it will turn into a whole system of change,” said Wellness Director Jessica Colvin.
