Are you frequently arriving at school late and finding yourself behind on all your assignments during the first hour? Have you considered what might happen if the school day began later, providing students with additional time to prepare themselves and arrive ready to learn with a full breakfast? What would be the potential outcomes if schools started classes at 9:00 AM or even later? Would such a change eliminate all of the current challenges that students face, or would the same difficulties persist despite the adjusted schedule? These questions deserve consideration as we examine the benefits and drawbacks of later school start times. To gather data on this topic, I created a Google Form to collect class opinions by asking the following questions: How many days per week do you arrive late to the first hour? What time should school start? Why do you want school to start later? The survey responses provided valuable information about where Lamphere High School students stand on this important issue.
For the first question ( How many days in the week are you arriving late to school? ), 1-0 is 78.3%, 2-3 is 4.3%, 4-5 is 4.3%, and 3-4 is also 4.3%. This might not seem like a lot, but throughout the week, you have 5% of the class coming into school late for each class. It adds up once everything is put together. This also creates more work for the teachers, having to re-explain the lesson multiple times just in one hour for all the kids coming in late. I feel like if we started later, kids would get more sleep and want to get up. They would feel motivated after an 8-9-hour sleep. The second question I asked the students was what time they would like their school to start. These are what they had to say: 8:30 am (33.3%), keep it the same (29.2%), 8:00 am (16.7%), 8:45 am (4.2%), 9:30 am (8.3%), and lastly 9:00 am (8.3%).
The last question was open-ended, and it said, “Why do you want school to start later?” I had some mixed answers to the question, and it was definitely two-sided, with some people wanting to start later to eat and actually get some sleep. But others said they like to get it over with. They enjoy seeing their friends early and eating breakfast in the cafeteria with them. Someone replied with “I think starting at like 8:30 would be better for more awake people who cannot stay awake in the morning, and I do also believe going to school later could also improve more people’s attention and attitude,” but someone else said “I don’t think it should start later because then when I finish my sports I’ll be really hungry. Also, if you’re showing up late to school, it’s either because you can’t wake up. After all, you didn’t get enough sleep, or it’s because you can’t get out of your house on time. Being able to wake up and get to a place on time is essential later in life, which school prepares you for.” Another response on the Google form said, “I think school should start later because most teens’ circadian rhythm shifts to naturally make them go to bed later and wake up later. The early start times for teens result in chronic sleep deprivation, which leads to a multitude of other issues (poor decision making, tardiness, inability to retain information, etc.).”
After all the questions and answers I got from the students of LHS, I wanted to ask some of the teachers the same questions and see how they felt about school starting later. Just to get variety, I got answers from a couple of teachers. I asked them the same question, what time they would like their school to start?
Ms. Mouw replied with “I would choose for school to start at 9 am. Research shows that adolescents’ brains function best between 9 am and 5 pm. Plus, I wouldn’t have to wake up as early.”
Mr. Stedman said, “I am not a morning person. However, if school started too much later, then it would be difficult for extracurriculars to finish at a decent time. If I had my wish, school would begin at 8:30 am.”
Mrs. Villerot says, “ I think school should start at 8:30 am because we need more of a sleep gap to get our brains refreshed.”
I personally think a good time for school to start is 8:30 AM. My morning routine takes about 40 minutes to get ready and get to school. Usually, when I ask people this question, “Why doesn’t school start later?” I continually get the answer that it’s because of sports. However, sports usually don’t start until late afternoon, which is just for convenience, but I feel like it would be better for us to get up later. I usually feel refreshed after sleeping in for another hour if I arrive at school late. I feel like that extra hour of sleep does the trick for me!
My last question is: what do you think? What time do you want school to start? Leave a comment!
