As students return to school for another year, scientists and policymakers are debating the best morning start times for children and how the schedules affect their health and learning.
The scientific community has spoken out against the 8 a.m. start of the typical U.S. school day, with research showing that the start time can harm middle and high school students. But administrators and others have fought to change the status quo, highlighting concerns regarding bus routes, parent drop-off times and sports.
“There is no controversy whatsoever when it comes to the science,” said Adam Winsler, a professor of applied developmental psychology at George Mason University, adding that the real debate is between parents and school district schedules.
In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that schools start classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to ensure teens get the adequate amount of eight to 10 hours of sleep.
Other groups, including the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, followed suit and pushed for school schedules to be postponed.
Fred Medway, a licensed psychologist, said that delaying start times even “an hour later” produces a huge number of positive results.
“The things that increase are things like their amount of sleep, their physical health, their mental health is better, their academics are better, their attendance is better, their graduation rates are better, they eat more breakfast, they are more focused. at school,” Medway said.
“Things that happen are things like: less likely to be late, less likely to have depression, less likely to have anxiety, less likely to get hurt at school, especially from a sports injury, less likely to use caffeine,” he added.
Louisiana schools have the earliest average start times in the country, with some sending high school students to school as early as 7:30 a.m. Other states with early school for teens include Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Cora Breuner, an expert on teens and co-author of the policy released by the AAP on school start times, said some schools in the city of Seattle have changed their start times to 8:45 a.m.
“As a doctor who cares for teenagers, seeing the difference in the children I care for in terms of their mental health and ability to be resilient and go to school, continue to play sports and have a happier and healthier reflection on life in their future. I mean, I’m literally seeing it in the kids I care for,” she said.
The changes especially help older children – younger children go to bed earlier and often face fewer screen-based distractions, making it easier for them to meet their sleep needs.
California in 2019 became the first state to mandate that classes start after 8 a.m., while a Florida law requires that by 2026 no school can start before 8 a.m., and 8:30 a.m. for high schools.
Several other states have considered legislation along these lines, but the change could be slow to come and face surprising opposition.
“There’s a strong and vocal minority, generally, of parents and people who just don’t like the idea of their high school kids sleeping in and coming home late in the afternoon,” Winsler said. what they invent is everything,” from playing sports to having the older children at home to take care of the younger ones, she added.
Postponing class times can also conflict with parents’ work schedules.
But it’s not just parents who struggle with potential changes. Districts face financial and logistical hurdles in changing bus schedules and rearranging other parts of the school day.
Breuner called for any changes to be well-funded so that schools don’t face difficulties trying to be healthier for their students.
In the city of Seattle, she said, they were able to “get our athletic coaches to start sports later in the afternoon. We managed to make people understand that it is not the role of teenagers to take care of their siblings.”
“Schools need to offer extracurricular programs for elementary school children so that teenagers don’t do this and [are] being able to play more sports and do other things besides that,” said Breuner.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
