Should High School Start Later

Most high schools in the United States start school before eight a.m. Boards of Education do this to help make transportation easier and to finish the day quicker (Eight). Alas, they seem to forget about the effect of early start times on students. Later start times, anything after eight o’clock in the morning, would benefit students in multiple ways. First of all, it is a fact that teenagers stay awake later than others because they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin until around eleven at night (Kalish). Parents and teachers blame teenagers for staying up late, but they naturally go to sleep at a later time than adults and children. Our first periods are practically wastes of time because brains of teens are still stuck in sleep mood at this time of day. Teenage bodies continue to produce melatonin until around eight a.m., yet they are expected to show up for class at seven-thirty in the morning with weary minds and annoyed attitudes (Kalish). On the contrary, people those who oppose the later school times like to bring up the many problems created by the change. For example, many mention that
Educating kids starts with effort and attendance and both of those went up in Jessamine County, Kentucky. Because of this, the county also saw standardized test scores rise (Kalish). One other eye-popping statistic for parents is after Fayette County, Kentucky began starting school later, teenage car wrecks went down (Kalish). Educational improvements help schools out immensely, so why not give these start times a try? Overall, the benefits of starting school later in the day highly outweigh the opportunity costs. Schools would see happier and more attentive students filling the desks every day. When the students are happy, everything else works out. This idea has proven to benefit trying schools, so this idea has many reasons to be given a