Having School Start Later Essay

As you can see there are many benefits to having school start later such as, better grades, better test scores, better attendance, and better health. But even though all those positive aspects come out of having school later some people still think that having school later does not have an effect on grades, attendance, or health. According to an article on NEA Today written by Tim Walker, “Unfortunately, concerns about lack of sleep often get the brush-off from schools and even some parents who are quick to blame inattentiveness in school solely on teen behavior, laziness, general indifference, or all of the above. If only they went to bed earlier, concentration and attentiveness would improve,” (Walker “Despite”). Even some of our own parents
Mary A. Carskadon of Brown University, found that more mature adolescents had later circadian rhythm timing, based on melatonin secretions in saliva samples. This finding shows that melatonin secretion occurs at a later time in adolescents as they mature; thus, it is difficult for them to go to sleep earlier at night. The melatonin secretion also turns off later in the morning, which makes it harder to wake up early (Carskadon et al., 1998),” (Backgrounder). Melatonin is a hormone that helps control sleep and wake cycles (Melatonin). So this helps prove that going to bed early is not going to help teenagers not be tired the next day when they have to wake up early for school. There is even research done by Judith Owens proving that starting school later does result in students sleeping more, not just going to bed even later. “After the start time delay, mean school night sleep duration increased by 45 minutes, and average bedtime advanced by 18 minutes (95% confidence interval, 7-29 minutes [t423 = 3.36; P < .001]); the percentage of students getting less than 7 hours of sleep decreased by 79.4%, and those reporting at least 8 hours of sleep increased from 16.4% to 54.7%,”