Later school start pushed for teens
COSHOCTON - While studies continue to tout the health benefits of allowing teenagers to sleep longer and start school a bit later, opinions remain divided on the topic.
Holly McCoy, 18, of Coshocton, remembers what it was like to start at 7:55 a.m. at Ridgewood High School.
“Honestly, during senior year, I was pretty much exhausted all the time,” she said.
McCoy graduated from Ridgewood in May and now attends Ohio University in Athens as a freshman, majoring in graphic design.
During high school, she usually got up at 6:30 a.m. on weekdays, earlier if she wanted to dress up. Often, she didn’t have time to eat before leaving for school.
In college, McCoy’s earliest class starts at 9 a.m. She favors allowing high school students to begin their school days at 8:30 a.m. to give them more time to wake up and prepare for the day.
“Eating before (school) and getting mentally prepared for class, I think that’s really important,” she said.
The American Medical Association in June became the latest health organization to call for middle and high schools to start classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
According to the AMA, recent studies show 32 percent of teens report getting at least eight hours of sleep on an average school night. The association recommends teens between ages 14 and 17 sleep between 81/2 and 91/2 hours each night.
Dr. Aneesa Das, a doctor at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center who specializes in sleep medicine, said delaying the morning bell could help prevent sleep deprivation.
“Teens and adolescents have increased academic pressures,” she said. “They have increased extracurricular activities. They have increased social opportunities, and these combinations of increased pressures cause them to tend to go to bed later and later in order to get everything done.”
To get the necessary amount of sleep, a student would have to go to bed at 9 p.m. to rise at about 6:15 a.m. for school.
“That’s really difficult to achieve with the demands on these kids,” Das said.
Another reason for later start times, Das said, is the biological shift in the bodies of teens and adolescents that causes them to go to bed later and sleep later.
“That time frame means that these teens are now expected to wake up when their bodies’ natural tendency is wanting to sleep,” she said.
Das said chronic sleep deprivation can cause lasting health problems, including an increased risk for high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.
People who are sleep deprived are more associated with having mood disorders, anxiety and depression. Sleep deprivation also can affect their ability to learn and, therefore, their academic performance.
Das has another concern: Sleep deprivation affects people’s ability to drive.
“Do we really want our youngest drivers learning to drive and be on the road with the added insult of sleep deprivation?” she asked.
Neither the Ohio School Board Association nor the Ohio Department of Education has a recommendation on when schools should start in the morning.
Dalton Summers, superintendent of River View Local Schools, said delaying start times for junior high and high school students would require his district to possibly double its drivers and buses.
That added cost “would have a drastic effect on us,” he said.
Full-time bus drivers in the district now serve 22 routes in two shifts, first picking up and delivering the older students, then transporting the elementary students. Paring that down to one shift would require more buses, more drivers, more salaries and more benefits packages, Summers said.
From a personal perspective, Ridgewood Middle School Principal Trista Claxon said “I’m in favor sleeping in.” But moving back the school day’s start would also push back after-school practice, games, homework and dinner times, she said.
Claxon said she sees both sides of the issue, but she thinks that if she were able to start school later, she probably would stay up later, too. Students might take the same approach, she said.
“My son would,” she said.
Dr. David Hire, superintendent of Coshocton City Schools, said he doesn’t think delaying the start time for high school students would be a bad idea, but it would come with tradeoffs.
“It would be an adjustment for families who are trying to drop off their kids or pick them up,” he said.
While it probably would delay the start of afternoon practices, games and activities, he said, it also could provide more structured supervision for teenagers later into the afternoon.