Greene 1

Charlotte Greene
15-3-17
College Comp 1
Mrs. Cramer
School Start Times: Too Early or Too Late?

Overtime, kids tend to develop a biological change to stay up later causing them to be

extremely tired when waking up early the next day. Students who do not get enough sleep due to

these early start times tend to be at risk for a great quantity of health issues. The students'

academic performance is affected from the students early start time for school. For example, a

student that works a part-time job until 10 pm, and they end up going home to bed late, which

causes them difficulties waking up the next day. These causes a huge decrease in their academic

performance due to attending school at a early start time. School start times should vary for each

age group to enhance academic performance, and ensure that students get enough sleep.

Meanwhile, school districts have been thinking of making this change for a long, long,

long time.1The school districts have been thinking of this change because of the numerous

students being observed showing interesting scientific discoveries. Studies show that high school

students who wake up early for school do not get enough sleep. (Edwards) Teenagers that are not

getting enough sleep can have academic risks. Children that have not hit puberty fall asleep

earlier, and wake up earlier the next day. If the schools switched their start times for younger

children to start school earlier than the high school students then both age groups would benefit

in a great amount of ways. Each age group would then get the amount asleep they need to fully

1 Analepsis- This is an analepsis that emphasizes how long they have been thinking
about changing school start times.
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function properly. This way teenagers would get as much sleep as a newborn baby.2 If the school

districts created a later start time for schools, then it would boost the students academic

achievements. (Edwards) School start times that begin later would cause more students to

increase their academic performance greatly.

By the way, these school districts are not all thinking about the change of the schools start

times, or what they would do to their student achievements. In some cases, schools are having

academic issues with their students due to the students not getting enough sleep before school.

This is why some schools are looking into changing their start times. (Edwards) Other school

districts, on the other hand, are not thinking about changing their school start times. They do not

want to think about these changes because of the cost, crowding, the parents who rely on

afternoon child care, and scheduling conflicts that this would cause. (Bratsis) This is why most

schools are not thinking about changing their school district start times. The problem with

changing school start times is that for younger kids their parents would not have someone to look

after them after school. (Edwards) This would occur in kids who have working parents. Most

parents, rely on their oldest child, who is most likely attending high school, to look after their

younger siblings while they are at work. If the high school students were to start later they would

get out later, therefore causing parents to not have someone look after their children while they

are at work. If we changed these times from younger kids going to school earlier than teenagers

it would cause scheduling conflicts in various households throughout school districts. (Edwards)

Start time changes would benefit the children rather than the adults.

2 Simile- This is a simile that compares how much a teenager sleeps to a newborn
baby.
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In fact, the science behind the academics of the school start times begin in the human

body when teenagers begin puberty. (APA) Most teens melatonin levels seem to rise later at

night than in most children and adults. (Bratsis) Teens melatonin levels rising later at night

causes them to go to bed later, and want to get up later the next day. ( Bratsis) Also, adolescents

that do not get enough sleep often suffer from physical and mental health problems. ( Bratsis)

Some of these health problems vary from being overweight, and suffering from depression, risk

of getting into car accidents. (Bratsis&George) These issues have been scientifically proven by a

great amount of scientists that have observed these teenagers. Young children were not observed

because they do not have problems with their melatonin levels rising later at night. (Bratsis)

Most children that have not hit puberty happen to have high melatonin levels in the morning and

lower melatonin levels at night. (Bratsis) Changing the school starting time could solve some

unintended issues that are occurring right now. (George)

For instance, studies show that only high school students were observed for these

occurrences. High school students were the only ones studied in this observation because of their

drastic body changes during puberty. (Bratsis) Children that are too young to start puberty were

not analyzed because of their melatonin levels do not rise later at night. Adults melatonin levels

are similar to young children due to them surpassing puberty. (Bratsis) Which means only

teenagers are able to be observed for this experiment. Melatonin levels cannot be controlled in

the human body, it's mainly based on the human bodies growth, and development throughout

their lifetime. (Bratsis) This test should be ran in all ages just in case there was a possible flaw in

their results. There may be a lot of positive outcomes in this for teenagers, but when it comes to

cost it does not seem like a reasonable change for school districts to attempt. But, if we just
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looked at the benefits for children academics it makes school start times reasonable to be in

placed.

In conclusion, the school start times should be changed because of the issues high school

students face with their health. (Edwards) If all districts came together to apply this later start

time it would cause more health improvements in today's societies. By, enforcing a later school

start time being set less kids would go through depression which means less children would be

attempting or committing suicide due to their intense depression which could be prevented by

enough sleep. Also, by setting the schools start time back would decrease obesity in teenagers.

(Bratsis) If we started to make these changes now it would bring a healthy future to the children

that are growing into pre-teens, or teenagers. These simple changes could cause people to live

longer lives just by getting the correct amount of sleep to succeed in school. There would be less

people on welfare, and more people with jobs reaching all the achievements they would imagine

just from a change back in high school.3With a later school start time the whole world could

change in more ways than one. School start times should be set up for each age group to provide

them the sleep they need to take on the day, and maybe someday, the world.

3 Exaggeration- Exaggeration is used to express that it is impossible to get

everyone off of welfare just from the correct amount of sleep throughout school.
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Work Cited:

American Psychological Association Times, School Start. Later School Start Times Promote

(n.d.): n. pag. Web.

Bratsis, Michael E. "The Scientific Case for Starting High School Later." The Science Teacher.

National Science Teachers Association, 01 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2017..

Edwards, Finley "Do Schools Begin Too Early?" Education Next. N.p., 25 Dec. 2016. Web. 24

Mar. 2017

George, Donna St. "Debate over School Start times Flares Anew." The Washington Post. WP

Company, 01 Jan. 2017. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.