There’s nothing wrong with school in itself. At all. You go there to learn, and while it’s not always enjoyable, and you will not use most of what you learn in school in your everyday life, there’s one thing that most kids hate most about school. It starts so early. For my elementary school, we used to start at 8:50 am. When I started junior high, we used to start at 8:05 am. Now, I’m at Prairie Ridge High School, and we start at 7:25 am Tuesdays through Fridays, and 8:10 am on Mondays. We’ll actually discuss this point a little later on, so don’t forget that. 8:10 am only on Mondays.
I’ve never quite figured out why exactly schools start so early. After doing some research, I didn’t really have answers, but I had more theories on why. Several articles suggested that it was due to school buses. Often, the same school buses are used for all elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in one district. This is a separate issue on its own, and will also tie back to the 8:10 am Monday start times.
Regardless of why school times start so early in the morning, I think it’s important for students and educators to be made aware of why this is such an important thing to avoid. An article from the CDC, they wrote, “5 out of 6 U.S. middle schools & high schools start the school day before 8:30 AM. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that middle & high schools should aim to start no earlier than 8:30 AM to enable students to get adequate sleep.” Students simply do not get enough sleep. Teens need at least 8 hours of sleep at night. 2 out of 3 teenagers get less than this, myself included. I average about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, which means I’m going to sleep around 11 PM or 12 AM.
I need to address the importance of why the adults’ logic fails when they simply suggest, “Go to bed earlier” to a complaining student. Students go to school for 7-8 hours a day, and then after school, they’re expected to do various activities, such as playing sports or finishing homework, along with having downtime to themselves. You can’t expect a student who needs to wake up at 6 AM to go to bed around 10 PM at the latest. There is too much going on in teenagers’ lives. I think that a later start time will benefit everybody, rather than teenagers sleeping earlier.
When PR has 8:10 am start times on “Late-Start Mondays”, I feel so much better waking up at 7 am instead of 6 am. Throughout the whole day, I feel more refreshed and ready to learn. I’m able to get through my day without accidentally falling asleep in a class. But on Tuesdays and for the rest of the week, I’m exhausted and drained, often finding myself slipping away in slumber during class. If “Late-Start Mondays” were implemented across the entire district for the whole week, I believe that students would function better throughout their day.
Now, I’ve tried to make sense of the other side, too. What is preventing District 155 from implementing a later start? When asked whether sharing buses with the elementary district is a factor, Prairie Ridge High School principal Dr. Steven Koch replied, “the shortest answer is that yes, our transportation combo with District 47 is a primary driver (pardon the pun) of the schedule — it’s one of many considerations.” He also said that we need to start earlier in the day to account for daylight and other considerations for all of our extracurriculars.
And on these Late Start Mondays, the times don’t change, so the buses still arrive at students’ houses anywhere between 6 am and 6:40 am and drop them off at the respective high schools, and then students wait for over an hour for classes to begin. Which is an entire hour students can be sleeping if you think about it. Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a parent drive them on these days like I do, and they lose out on needed sleep.
Late Start Mondays should become Late Start Every Day. If we allowed students to sleep in just an extra hour, we would solve problems with tired students. When students are tired, they tend to do worse academically, and that reflects poorly on their grades and then ultimately, their future. We can’t have students falling asleep in class, so we must adjust our approach.
