Why High School Should Start Later Essay

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Back to High School Means Less Sleep for Students As bad as it is, the new school year is just starting up and students are already sleep deprived. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has declared the frequent sleep-iness of our nation’s teenagers to be a chronic public health crisis of the nation. The series of cases involving busy students, forced to stay up late at night in order to finish their home-work, need to do so if they plan to be successful. These teens are involved in a variety of activities and have so much to do, from editing the school newspaper and playing second base on the softball team to working at the local deli to earn money to pay for a car, and don’t usually start working on their homework until late after when “normal” citizens retire to sleep. The AAP called on schools to start later so students could get additional sleep. This group…show more content…
Also, studies have been conducted that show a later start time would benefit a student’s amount of sleep per evening, improve attendance rates, decrease dropout rates, and reduce adolescent driver accidents. Despite these findings, the open question that remains makes a superior point: Would this later start time improve academic performance? The AAP accepts that it might be difficult for schools to start later without creating scheduling problems. But nevertheless they argue that schools should make the effort to make the change and do what is best for their students. And yes, I do believe a later start time would improve academic performance greatly. This would be in conclusion of the facts that more sleep would have a positive affect on mood, attention, memory, and behavioral control that allow a student to perform academically at their highest
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