Persuasive Essay: Why And Why Should Start School Start?

Day after day students have to drag themselves out of bed extremely early in order to make it to school on time, and as students get older, schools start even earlier and it makes them more exhausted than ever. Many schools around the country start before the recommended time of 8:30 am, particularly high schools which start the earliest. Starting school so early takes a toll on adolescents’ health, sleep schedules, and concentration, which can result in poor academic achievement and safety issues. High schools around the country should push back their school start times in order to provide safe and healthy conditions for students and boost their academic performance. Adolescents need about 8-10 hours of sleep a night in order to be getting

Students are constantly tired while driving to school, which affects their safety, in addition to the safety of the people around them. Beginning school later could reduce teen crashes and make the roads safer for everyone. In 2009 and 2010, there was a study done in Virginia involving teens and their crash rates while traveling to school, which was recorded and analyzed by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. According to the AASM, “Results show that the weekday crash rate for teen drivers during the 2009 to 2010 school year was about 29 percent higher in Chesterfield County, Va., where high school classes began at 7:20 a.m., than in adjacent Henrico County, Va., where classes started at 8:45 am…,(“Teens with earlier School Start Times”)”. Obviously, there will always be car accidents regardless; however, later starts will give students more alertness on the road and could drop the rate of crashes quite drastically. The study clearly shows that earlier starts correspond to more crashes, so if schools begin to start later, there most likely will be fewer car

For instance, people say starting schools later could affect transportation and how students get to school. People think starting schools later would affect bus schedules and not allow them to transport students effectively. However, according to the National Sleep Foundation, “One solution that has worked to solve this problem is flipping start times, most commonly elementary with high school. This solution requires no extra buses or drivers, just a change in the order of pickups, (“Eight major Obstacles”)”. So, a simple fix would be swapping elementary and high school start times because earlier starts for elementary schools seem to be more efficient and more appropriate for younger children, which then gives older high school students more time to catch up on their sleep. Another issue people appear to have with delaying school starts times is that it may reduce time for practices and other activities after school. Beginning school an hour later means that students would get out later in the afternoon, leaving less time for practices and activities. Nonetheless, according to schools in Wilton, Connecticut, “Teachers who also coached at the schools were concerned before the change that they would be unable to make it to practices, but this turned out not to be a problem. Wilton High School had one of its best athletic seasons, even earning