BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! A brutal, screeching alarm wrenches you out of your slumber. Dreading getting up, you slowly drag yourself out of bed and take a shower. The time? 6 o’clock in the morning. Wow, that’s early, you think to yourself. And, on top of it all, now you have to go to school.
Nobody likes beating around the bush, so I’m going to put it bluntly: school starts too early. Like … way too early. So early, in fact, that a typical student is more likely to engage in bad behavior, be less productive, and cause caffeine addiction. Now, it’s not going to school, or even just waking up early that could cause this to happen to somebody; it’s the fact that school starts so early, and after-school activities and homework keep students up incredibly late, that the majority of students are deprived of sleep because of it.
A student usually gets home from an after-school activity at around six, sometimes even later. Then, for some, there is a pile of tons of homework from the AP and college classes the district tells us to take, and that usually puts teens at the “getting ready for bed” stage at around 11:30 or midnight.
We believe that our district – who encourages us to take these hard classes, and to participate in clubs, sports, and activities – should make it easier for us to engage in activities they so strongly encourage us to take by starting school an hour later.
According to research from 2011, insufficient sleep on an average school-nights was reported by just under 70% of students. Almost any teenager can attest to the fact that sleep is not an easy thing to come by during the school year. With that, in the fifteen years since, sleep has likely become more of an issue with the influx of technology and social media.
With no sleep comes, ironically, sleepiness. But, scared of getting yelled at by your math teacher for sleeping in class, you have to stay awake by any means necessary. Your desperation turns into exceptionally high doses of caffeine.
According to other peer reviewed studies, “Acute caffeine intake can delay sleep initiation and reduce sleep intensity, particularly when consumed in the evening.” The consumption of caffeine reduces your capability to sleep—especially when you consume it in the afternoon and evening. This research doesn’t even consider teenage boys AND girls who are more heavily affected by extremely high doses of caffeine.
So every time you stay up ridiculously late cramming for a midterm, guzzling Red Bull after Red Bull, you are an example for these studies. This all-nighter is not good for your brain, and having to go school so early drops a bomb on practically any kind of functions your body does naturally… especially those of decision-making.
Back on the study on _____, the lack of sleep leads to poor decision-making, and riskier behavior among adolescents. Basically, if a teen is sleep-deprived—which the majority of us are at this point—they are likely going to make poor health, mind, and social decisions and engage in illegal activities (such as consuming drugs, etc.). Perhaps the reason so many kids vape in the E-wing bathroom is because they are inhibited by a barely-functioning brain running on 3 hours of sleep.
Student productivity in many schools is rough. Sure, some of that is because of procrastination, laziness, or other excuses you have for “sleep deprivation.” Sleep is the most essential part of productivity in people of all ages; especially teenagers.
As per the University of Washington who conducted their own study of students, they found that, “Final grades were 4.5 percent higher for students who took [a] class after school start times were pushed back compared with students who took [a] class when school started earlier.” Who would’ve thought that, when kids are actually getting the proper amount of sleep per night, they would be getting better grades? Crazy stuff, really.
Yes, sleep (or the lack thereof), has massive consequences on student performance, work production, and behavior. Basic understanding of the brain has revealed a really puzzling fact: the brain matters. Like, a lot. If we aren’t properly recharging our brains by sleeping, then it’s going to just kind of… stop working. When teens don’t sleep enough, they’re more likely to make bad choices because (you guessed it!) their brain isn’t working properly. Teens also are less likely to learn in school because (you guessed it!) they’re tired and either sleeping or unable to focus in class.
Sleep is important, and so is your brain. And a proper eight-to-ten hours of sleep is necessary for basic daily functioning in school. But since teenagers are averaging some two hours less than the recommended amount of sleep, the overall functioning of their brains is practically burning at the stake.
St. Vrain Valley Schools needs to shift start times. That extra 45-minutes to an hour of sleep is huge for students.
Pretty please, Don Haddad, let us sleep in 45 minutes! We beg of you! We promise we’ll make better decisions and you’ll see improvement in our grades.
