Attending school, completing homework, participating in after-school activities, having jobs, and obligations at home takes up much of our time as teenagers, and that’s not even counting any time that we may set aside just to relax or to pursue some hobby. As a result the majority of us are sleep deprived, staying up hours on end. The start time of school doesn’t help the matter, and while many schools, primarily elementary schools, have resorted to delaying their start times, many have not adopted the later start times into their schedules. Early start times affect students negatively, yet many schools have not changed their ways.

According to a study done by the Journal of School Health, adolescents require about nine hours of sleep each night, yet less than 8 percent of high school students report that they get that much. Students suffer from many symptoms as a result, such as weight gain, poor mental and physical health, and even an increase in depressed or suicidal thoughts. Teenagers tend to become alert around 8 a.m.

On the one hand anyone can argue that students may need to lighten their loads in order to get enough sleep at night. Yet due to biological changes occurring in teenagers’ bodies, melatonin secretions to be specific, we have later circadian rhythm timing: therefore, it becomes more difficult for adolescents to fall asleep earlier at night. This would mean that even those who don’t have particularly busy schedules also suffer from the early start time of school.

The lack of sleep not only affects many aspects of students’ lives, but it also affects their performance in school. Grades suffer and so do attendance, and in their first period classes students lack alertness that they have in other classes.

Later start times help students retain knowledge by increasing their alertness in their classes and would help their attendance since they wouldn’t have to wake up so early in order to come to school.

In order to create an optimal learning environment for students and to maximize their potential, delaying start times at schools would be beneficial to students in many ways.