Searcy, AR (LP) — Starting in the school year of 2022-2023, all California middle schools and high schools will be required to start at or after 8:30 am. This after California passed State Senate Bill 328, the latest in California’s reform bills. However, this bill’s effects aren’t necessarily stopped by state borders. This move has piqued the interest of students and teachers alike in areas even as far as Searcy.
It may make sense to one that students would have strong feelings about changing the times at which they must awake and go to school in the morning. Anthony Osborn, a student at Searcy High School, says, “I would really like it. I don’t really get much sleep and, with a later start time, I would get enough sleep before starting school. It’s just a better experience.” Students aren’t alone, though in the desire for more sleep. Calandra Cook, an English teacher at Searcy High School says, “I know logistically it would be difficult, but I think it would be helpful for student’s academic health, their mental health, their physical health, and academic progress.”
But it may come as a surprise that there are studies that prove later start times fix problems seen today in schools. In a study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, students who don’t sleep 8-10 hours a day are more likely to consume alcohol or other drugs, be overweight, not exercise regularly, be depressed, and not perform well in school. This is a problem considering that, according to the American Psychological Association, only ten percent of students aged 15-17 sleep for the needed amount of time.
However, a big reason for schools to change to later start times is how students who don’t sleep well don’t work well. At first, this doesn’t seem a big problem but it is truly a sad problem made only by the schools, themselves. Schools receive finances based on student performance. If a student is not doing well that school is losing somewhere in the area of 47 dollars, according to Forbes. Now, this number may not seem huge, but with 30% of students in the U.S. not performing in school as they should. That is 30% is roughly 76 million students in the U.S. If that 76 million is multiplied by 30% and then multiplied by the 47 dollars, the total sum comes to about one billion seventy-one million six hundred thousand dollars. That is an incredible number that would do equally incredible things for schools, especially those in smaller towns like Searcy.
So, what holds schools back from fixing this clear problem? Cook states, “Money and convenience. I think, a lot of times, that when you start something it feels like that’s just the way it has always been done. But it would be a challenge to figure out bus routes with ‘Would elementary still start the same?’ and then ‘If middle school and junior high and high school start later, how would that affect practices, extracurriculars?’ There would be a lot to go into a decision if you were pushing school day back an hour or 30 minutes.”
To those concerned about messing up schedules, Osborn offers profound reasoning, “If you change it now, would you still have problems a hundred years from now? You wouldn’t, right? So, even any small schedule issue in the present will get solved.” Basically, the contest is a long-term solution versus a short-term problem. That isn’t a very steady argument.
