School starts too early : children are sleep deprived

Everyone knows the feeling of waking with your alarm going off for 30 plus minutes, and you, still paralized in bed, suddenly coming back to reality. You’re on the clock and you have 5 minutes to get dressed, eat breakfast, go out the door, sprint to school and try to salvage your grade. You already know you messed up, suddenly you have this feeling making you sick to your stomach . . . stress. 

 

Now imagine a day where you can sleep in later than you ever have before, an hour maybe two. You’re refreshed after a long day of learning yesterday. You’re ready to rue a new day, knowing you have the necessary amount of time you need. Sounds great right.

 

The CDC (Center of Disease Control and Prevention)did a study showing that 73% of high school students in the United States get below 8 hours of sleep a night. The recommended amount of sleep for a high school student is 8 – 10 hours of sleep per day, shown from the CDC. This means 73% of all highschool students are sleep deprived when they go to school. 

 

WebMD ,a highly trusted source used to improve people’s health, says “Sleep deprivation affects your ability to learn in two ways. Because you can’t focus as well, it’s more difficult to pick up information, so you can’t learn efficiently. It also affects memory, which is essential to learning. ” If 73% of highschool students can’t focus during school then their day ends up being less productive and educational. And that night they won’t be able to retain the information they learnt that day:making tomorrow harder. 

 

We need to save students. The U.S. department of education must change the school start times. For the benefit of all students. 

 

Finland’s graduation rate is 17.5% higher than the U.S. And their schools start at 9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. While the U..S’s starts at 7:38 a.m for highschool. There is a staggering 2 hour difference between school start times. And the graduation rate changes dramatically. 

 

If we were to match Finland’s school start time then school days would end at 3:39 to 4:24. And with the average student sleeping at 11:00 p.m. the students would have 6 hours plus to work on homework and do activities.

 

Millions of students struggle waking up to their alarm and going to school. Not only does it affect the students ability to learn but also hurts the student’s mental health. If school starts later then we would change the life of millions of students.

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5 thoughts on “School starts too early : children are sleep deprived

  1. Dear Milo,
    I agree with your statement 100 percent. We should go to school latter. I believe that everyone is more awake and concentrated latter in the day

  2. Dear Milo,
    I agree with your opinion. I think that when school is later in the day, it let’s children focus more. The only problem with this is that children’s after school activities might be disturbed with the timing of school ending. But otherwise, I totally agree with you.

    1. Dear Kaelen,
      I see you point, however i do mention this in the piece:

      If we were to match Finland’s school start time then school days would end at 3:39 to 4:24. And with the average student sleeping at 11:00 p.m. the students would have 6 hours plus to work on homework and do activities.

    2. Dear Kaelen,
      I see you point, however i do mention this in the piece and explain how this wouldn’t effect activities and homework:

      If we were to match Finland’s school start time then school days would end at 3:39 to 4:24. And with the average student sleeping at 11:00 p.m. the students would have 6 hours plus to work on homework and do activities.

  3. Dear Kaelen,
    I see you point, however i do mention this in the piece and explain how this wouldn’t effect activities and homework:

    If we were to match Finland’s school start time then school days would end at 3:39 to 4:24. And with the average student sleeping at 11:00 p.m. the students would have 6 hours plus to work on homework and do activities.

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