Is School Starting too Early?
What effect would school starting later have on students?
Why does it matter that students come to school early?
Buses that serve magnet schools cover a larger area so ride times are typically longer for magnet schools. Therefore, almost all magnet schools try to began at the earliest times.
What is the effect of teenagers waking up early?
Students in early starting schools are more likely to skip breakfast than later-starting students. Since they get home earlier, rather than going outside and playing sports, they will more likely take a nap and watch television.
Is it better for the student to wake up early?
Research has found that start times have little effect on elementary school students. More than half of all elementary school start at 8:15 while most of the rest begin at 9:15. This late start time has no academic effect on students, while early start times do. CDC teams stated that in puberty sleeping patterns commonly shift so adolescents become more sleepy later at night, thus leading to needing more sleep later in the morning.
Is how much sleep you get important to your test scores?
Yes,NBC and CDC say "The combination of delayed bedtimes and early school start times results in inadequate sleep for a large portion of the adolescent population.The consequences of this are clear. Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight; not engage in daily physical activity; suffer from depressive symptoms; engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs; and perform poorly in school," they wrote.
What difference would it make if school started later?
Later start times are associated with reduced television viewing, more time spent on homework, and fewer absences. The results show that the effect of a later start time in both math and reading is more than twice as large for students in the bottom third of the test-score distribution than for students in the top third. Also, students would get more sleep. Only 1/3 of all high school students in the US get more than 8 hours of sleep. Teenagers who do not have enough sleep tend to participate less, while obtaining unhealthy habits such as lack of physical exercise,drinking, and smoking. Although starting schools at a later time allow more sleep for the students, research showed that starting a high school 50 minutes later, would cost the school $21 million more a year.
How could things be better is we started at a later time?
The results indicate that a one-hour delay in start time increases standardized test scores on both math and reading tests by roughly 3 percentile points. Also increasing creativity, reaction time, decision making, attentiveness, and memory.
Essential Question: What effect would school starting later have on students?
In conclusion, starting school later (even if it's just an hour), can not only benefit the students physical health, but improve their minds. It can increase ability's such as increased brain activity, participation, and physical/mental health. It would also increase test scores in some areas and allow the students to get the sleep their developing bodies need. Knowing this we believe that school starting at a later time will have a positive affect on the students.
*Magnet school: a public school offering special instruction and programs not available elsewhere, designed to attract a more diverse student body from throughout a school district.*