Challenging the long-standing early start times for school age children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a recommendation in August that schools begin at 8:30 am or later. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has also released a statement in support of the “8:30 am or later” start time for middle schools and high schools. The CDC recommendation comes after an extensive review of data of school start times by researchers from the CDC and US Department of Education.
Adolescents need between 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night. During adolescent development, circadian rhythms begin to shift biological sleep patterns and natural waking times later. This means many middle school and high school students may not be able to naturally fall asleep until 11 pm or later. If students are sleeping later into the night and school start times are before 8:30 am, students may not be getting the necessary 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night.
Image Source: Thomas Koehler
According to the 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Report compiled by the CDC, approximately 66% of high school students are getting insufficient sleep. This statistic is alarming because sleep deprivation is associated with numerous health risks, including weight gain, alcohol consumption, depression, and drug use. A lack of sleep has also been linked to poor academic performance and memory consolidation issues. In addition, students who are not getting sufficient sleep may be prone to chronic sleep deprivation, in which a continuous pattern of insufficient sleep occurs. Researchers have linked chronic sleep deprivation to serious health problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. Furthermore, results from a study from the University of Minnesota supported the recommendation for later school start times by showing that shifting the start time later actually resulted in a boost in test scores and attendance.
The recommendations from the CDC and AAP to shift school start times to 8:30 am or later are based on data from nearly 40,000 US public middle, high, and combined schools that were evaluated in the 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey. The data indicates that between 75-100% of public schools in 42 US states started before 8:30 am. School start time policies are set by school districts and individual schools, depending on the region. Thus, education policymakers should focus their attention towards advocating for changes at the local level. The goal of these suggested policy changes is to adjust school start times to accommodate the natural sleep cycle shift of adolescents and give them an opportunity to get the adequate 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep they need each night. The policy changes can help adolescents get the necessary amount of sleep and maintain their overall health.
Feature Image Source: congerdesign
