Persuasive Essay On Why School Should Start Later

681 Words2 Pages

Kathryn Colburn
Honors English 9 – Period 1
TPQ #1
9/22/14
The average high school student will get about seven hours of sleep each night; this may seem reasonable to the majority of adults, but studies show that most teens need at least nine hours of sleep, if not more, to function at their best during the day. This lack of sleep most teenagers endure is due to various causes: overload of homework, exorbitant extracurricular activities, or simply the fact that most teens are unable to fall asleep until later at night. However, one of the most eminent factors contributing to students’ sleep deprivation is the early start time of school. If school were to start at 9:00 AM and end at 4:00 PM, students would show an improvement in both academics and health. “Biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during …show more content…

A few of the most typical arguments against the new schedules are statements such as, “Extracurricular activities will be affected”, “It’s too expensive to change the bus schedules”, or, ”Parents won’t be able to bring kids to school”. First, many school districts have changed to a later schedule and managed to keep their extracurricular activities running and successful by simply adjusting practice times around school hours. Secondly, while many schools found that there was little or no cost difference in changing bus schedules, there have been many solutions to the problem of bus costs; some schools flipped the schedules and buses so that elementary kids started earlier instead or made different routes to reduce the quantity of buses needed. Finally, if schools change their times, the community will be able to adjust around the new schedule. Plus, the earlier schedule also causes transportation problems for parents, so a later start time may help some people, and will reduce rush hour traffic by spreading out the times when people leave

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