Should Later School Students Get Enough Sleep?

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Have you ever awakened for school feeling tired and slow as molasses? Have you ever awakened groggy and had a hard time focusing? Many students experience these feelings every day. Students often do not get enough sleep because school starts incredibly early. Therefore, delaying school start times would be a key factor in addressing health, academic and psychological issues that are caused by a lack of teenage sleep.
First of all, students often do not get enough sleep. According to “Wake up Call”, an article by Sarah McKibben, “A National Sleep Foundation poll found 59 percent of 6th through 8th graders and 87 percent of U.S. high school students were getting less than the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep on school nights.” This shows that most students need more sleep so they are healthy and ready to learn. Later school start-times help teens get more sleep as well as helping them focus for the day. Judith Owens, author of the AAP policy statement further supports this idea when she states “Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents is one of the most common - and easily fixable - public health issues in the U.S. today… The CDC states that “adolescents who don’t get enough sleep have an …show more content…

They found that attendance and academic performance in math, English, science, and social studies improved in schools with later start times, while tardiness, substance abuse, and and symptoms of depression declined.” The above statement explains how students with better sleep improve academically.Classroom productivity would improve if teachers did not have to address students that are not paying attention due to being sleep deprived. It also shows how students with more time to relax at home improve

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