School Start Times
According to the CDC and the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation is an epidemic, especially among teens (1,2). Sleep deprivation is mostly due to ‘social jet lag’, the mismatch of societal schedules with our actual biological rhythms, which are determined by genetics and sunlight (3). While adults and young children can fall asleep early enough to allow the recommended amount of sleep for a healthy life, for most teenagers this adjustment is not possible. During puberty, hormonal changes cause a delay in the production of the ‘sleep hormone’ (melatonin) in the brain, rendering many teens incapable of falling asleep before 11pm-12am. In combination with the early start times of secondary school, this consistently prevents them from getting the recommended 8-10 hour of sleep per night. Unfortunately, numerous research studies suggest that ‘catch up’ sleep (e.g. naps, sleeping in on weekends) does not have the same health benefits as regular sleep.
Chronic sleep deprivation results in increased risks of mental disorders, substance abuse, car crashes, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, in addition to poorer academic and athletic performance (4,5). In 2014 the AAP recognized that, in order to avoid sleep deprivation, secondary schools should not start before 8:30am (6). Many other national medical and educational associations followed suit (7). A national movement called StartSchoolLater (8) was started several years ago to resolve this issue and to provide school districts with resources on how to switch to healthy school start times that allow every family to protect their children from sleep deprivation. Several US States and hundreds of school districts are in the process of moving to healthier school start times (9, 10).
The Alliance supports our community, the District Administration and the BOE in their mission of reforming the school hours (TVCSD Start Time Committee) with the least amount of disruption for the community and the maximum gain for the health of all our children (11).
We encourage parents to get informed on this topic and sleep hygiene, in order to protect their adolescents and to assist them in making healthy decisions. The Alliance can provide further information on this topic. Please contact us if interested.
Progress:
Members of the Alliance were founders of the ‘It’s About Time’ group. This large group of parents came together to discuss and advocate for a reform of the secondary school start times in our district, in order to make it possible to protect the health of all students. This discussion led to the launch of a petition that gathered more than 1,600 signatures and helped start a conversation on this topic with our District Administration and Board of Education. On December 11th, the BOE formally recognized our health concerns and mandated the constitution of a School Start Time Committee to evaluate the feasibility and impact of delaying secondary school start times.
