The proposal submitted by the local Board of Education to start high school earlier is absurd. Although the idea of accommodating an expanding schedule may sound convincing, there are many factors that should be taken into consideration before making a final decision.
I believe that starting school earlier could have negative effects on high school students due to sleep deprivation of the teenagers during adolescence. The teenagers’ sleep patterns change. Compared to when the teenagers used to be little children and went to bed early and woke up early, most adolescents prefer staying up later at night and sleeping later in the morning. I can personally relate to such fact. Researchers call this sleep pattern a “delayed phase preference” that is not a matter of choice. As the sleep deficit develops caused by the early start of first period in high school, the students are put at significant risk of school time sleepiness. This major factor contributes to the witnessed fallen asleep students at their desks, because they cannot biologically handle such early start of the school day. If the Board of Education considers starting school earlier in order to accommodate an expanding schedule thinking it is a great idea, they are in for a big surprise. The thought of an expanding schedule is an excellent educational theory. However, if a large group of sleep-deprived students is present, they will only learn less of the new program as compared to the previous schedule.
If such change in the high school takes place, the students will earn lower grades. Referring to the table of sleep time, bed time, and rise time for students getting different grades in two different states, it is observed that students with higher grades tend to get more school-night total sleep time. If the new schedule starts school earlier than it previously used to be, students will wake up a lot earlier, meaning they will be tired earlier in the evening. This will cause them to either fall asleep with unfinished homework, or finish their homework until late at night. This might cause them to be tired throughout the whole day at school, nodding off in class and even worse behind the wheel of a car. It is also notable on the table that students going to bed latest earn the lowest grades. As discussed before, most adolescents’ bodies biologically tend to wake up later in the morning and stay up later at night. Therefore, if an adolescent body is forced to wake up earlier than it may be used to from previous experience, it will be extremely hard for the student to wake up. This may sometimes cause the student to ignore the alarm and be late for school. Also, regardless of how tired the student may be, he or she will end up going to sleep late at night. Because, the student is experiencing a “delayed phase preference”, making him or her more alert and awake towards the later hours of the evening. These students will be often found dozing off in class and missing out on classroom lessons.
I find the suggested idea by the Board of Education to start school earlier totally irrational. The students will have a harder time dealing with the expanded schedule, because they will always be tired. The Board of Education might put this new rule into affect unless their goal is to have students sleep deprived and earning lower grades. If they are trying to make a change for the better, I would personally advice them to start school even later, so that more students can earn better grades.