Start Times- News Story

Everyday at school there are students who constantly doze off during class. Some stayed up too late, and others just need more sleep. No matter what the reason the question remains: Are high school start times too early? Experts say that the average teenager needs 7-9 hours of sleep each night, which means they need to go to bed around 11 at night to get enough sleep. We wanted to find out what some of the students around Eastview High School thought, so we surveyed a few people. When I asked Eli Golder, a senior at EVHS what he thought about the start times, he stated that they are way too early. He also mentioned that on average he falls asleep in class about one time everyday. This shows that some of the student at the school believe they need more sleep and could function better through out the day if given more rest. Something as little as an extra thirty minutes of sleep each night could be the difference of a student being motivated the next morning at school. Studies show that teens need more sleep than an elementary aged student, but for some reason elementary schools don’t start until around 9:30 a.m. Many people think this does not make sense for the reason that they do not need nearly as much sleep as teens.

One of the problems of making the start times for high schools later is all the after school activities would be thrown of schedule. All of the gym time would have to be reorganized, and equally distributed once again. The Performing Arts Center would have to be redistributed, and also the lifting schedules would have to be changed. Some believe that the way it is set up now is working perfectly fine, and say we should keep it the same. They like things to stay running the old fashion way since they have been working for so long. When I interviewed Joe Gramstad he stated that his academic performance would not change at all if we were awarded later school start times. And when I asked him if he could choose what the start time would be he said he’d keep it the same, 7:30 a.m. Parents say that it would throw off their entire schedule in the morning. The parents that need to drive their kids to school would have to wait around an extra hour or two before they could go in to work. And it would throw of the schedules of the elementary parents as well. They might not be able to sleep in as much, because they would need to wake up to drive their kid to school. Either way it is looked at sounds like it is a bad idea for the parents. Other parents say that they would love it because they would not have to deal with their cranky, tired kids in the morning. They would most likely be fully rested, and ready to go be good students.

This heated debate still rages on, and I do not know if anything will ever even happen with it. There are positives and negatives for both sides of the debate, so it is almost pointless to change how it is now. Because, even if you are helping out one person you might be making life more difficult for two other people. No matter what happens with this discussion teens will never be able to completely get out of going to school. No matter how hard they try to get that extra hour of sleep, they will still end up sitting in the class taking notes, so it does not even matter.