Education study: Attendance, graduation rates may match the science that teenagers need more sleep

Later school start times catch on nationwide

Many district administrators seem to agree that teenagers need more sleep. A new study released in February indicates that attendance and graduation rates may match the science, too.

Published in Sleep Health, the journal of the National Sleep Foundation, the study includes data for 30,000 students in 29 high schools from eight districts across seven states.
Two years after a delayed start was implemented at these high schools, average attendance rates increased from 90 percent to 94 percent, and graduation rates increased from 79 percent to 88 percent...

https://www.districtadministration.com/article/later-school-start-times-catch-nationwide?utm_content=buffer7a18a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

CDC: Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight; not engage in daily physical activity; suffer from depressive symptoms; engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs; and perform poorly in school.

School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students — United States, 2011–12 School Year

Please note: An erratum has been published for this article. To view the erratum, please click here.
Weekly 
August 7, 2015 / 64(30);809-813

Anne G. Wheaton, PhD1; Gabrielle A. Ferro, PhD1; Janet B. Croft, PhD1

Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight (1); not engage in daily physical activity (2); suffer from depressive symptoms (2); engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs (2); and perform poorly in school (3). However, insufficient sleep is common among high school students, with less than one third of U.S. high school students sleeping at least 8 hours on school nights (4). In a policy statement published in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urged middle and high schools to modify start times as a means to enable students to get adequate sleep and improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life (5). AAP recommended that "middle and high schools should aim for a starting time of no earlier than 8:30 a.m." (5). To assess state-specific distributions of public middle and high school start times and establish a pre-recommendation baseline, CDC and the U.S. Department of Education analyzed data from the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Among an estimated 39,700 public middle, high, and combined schools* in the United States, the average start time was 8:03 a.m. Overall, only 17.7% of these public schools started school at 8:30 a.m. or later. The percentage of schools with 8:30 a.m. or later start times varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to more than three quarters of schools in Alaska (76.8%) and North Dakota (78.5%). A school system start time policy of 8:30 a.m. or later provides teenage students the opportunity to achieve the 8.5–9.5 hours of sleep recommended by AAP (5) and the 8–10 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation (6)...

 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6430a1.htm?s_cid=mm6430a1_e

TONIGHT: Fairfax Board of Education Votes to Move High School Start Time

High Schools, Middle Schools Should Begin Day No Earlier Than 8:30 a.m., American Academy of Pediatrics Says

The Wall Street Journal:  Teens Need Later Start to School Day, Doctors Group Says

Petition: No to Proposed MCPS Elementary Bell Time Changes

We, the undersigned, request that efforts be made to provide high school students with a later bell time, but it should be accomplished in such a way that no elementary school should end later than 3:30pm.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-proposed-mcps-bell-time-changes.html

ADVOCATES JOIN FORCES TO PUSH FOR COMMON SENSE SCHOOL START TIMES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 19, 2012

ADVOCATES JOIN FORCES TO PUSH FOR COMMON SENSE SCHOOL START TIMES:  
Inspired by Research and Success in Other School Districts

From:      Start School Later, SSL Montgomery County, SSL Anne Arundel County, and SLEEP in Fairfax
Contact:                Heather Macintosh, Publicity Director, Start School Later 410-279-4569, 

               hmacintosh.startschoollater@gmail.com

Three grassroots groups in the DC Metro area—the Montgomery and Anne Arundel chapters of Start School Later (SSL) and SLEEP in Fairfax—are joining forces to push area school systems to provide later morning start times for high school students.  All three groups are circulating online petitions asking local school boards to push back bell times to better meet the sleep, health, safety, and learning needs of adolescents. 

Petition signatures in the three local areas are nearing 20,000. The Montgomery County Start School Later petition has garnered over 8,500 signatures in the past month, Anne Arundel’s petition has 1,850 signatures, and SLEEP in Fairfax has 9,158. 

Convinced by the research and buoyed by each other’s efforts, local advocates are united by a common vision and are learning from other counties like Arlington and Loudoun, VA, that have successfully shifted schedules. The school board in Fairfax, VA, recently set a goal to start high schools after 8 a.m., but no changes have been implemented.

“We all believe this is a critical public health problem. By working together, we can combine volunteer resources to press more effectively for start times that are more appropriate for adolescents,” noted Kari Oakes, PA-C, co-founder of SSL-Anne Arundel and Research Director at SSL, a physician assistant with many years of experience working with adolescents and young adults.

“Even when I do manage to get my work done early, I just can't close my eyes until 11:30,” wrote a high school student from Annapolis, MD, on the Anne Arundel petition. “My doctor told me to take melatonin if I was having that much trouble falling asleep earlier. I'm not alone in this, as my friends have been told and have tried to do the same. It doesn't really help. School has stopped being fun and has instead become one the biggest stressors in my life.”

Today’s very early high school start times—7:17, 7:20, and 7:25 a.m., in Anne Arundel, Fairfax, and Montgomery county high schools respectively—necessitate rise times between 5 and 6 a.m., since buses begin picking up students as early as 5:45 a.m. These hours are incompatible with known sleep patterns of teenagers, most of whom need about 9 hours of sleep a night. Physiology limits their ability to fall asleep much before 11 p.m., regardless of homework and extracurricular demands or electronic distractions. Shifted body clocks mean that waking teens at 6 a.m. is like waking adults at 3 a.m. and is akin to shift work.

“Sleep deprivation, with such health consequences as depression, suicide, car crashes, and increased risk of other injuries, should be treated like hunger,” said Mandi Mader, LCSW-C, founder of SSL Montgomery County.  “We don’t expect children to learn without food and we shouldn’t expect them to learn without sleep.” 

“Research is on the side of the advocates,” added Phyllis Payne, MPH, co-founder of SLEEP in Fairfax.  “Numerous studies show that high schoolers with later morning start times not only have improved moods and school performance, but also more sleep each night than those in schools with very early schedules.”

“Cost is an oft-cited reason that school systems use to avoid changing school schedules, but many schools have now returned to more traditional school hours (closer to 8:30 or 9:00 for high schools) without adding buses or increasing the transportation budget.” said Start School Later’s co-director, Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, a medical writer and historian. "Creative solutions can be found when schools prioritize health, safety, equity, and learning."


                                                                                              ###

Petition: Changing Montgomery County, MD's High School Start Times to 8:15 AM or Later.

Research has shown that when teens get the required 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep:

• School attendance goes up.
• Tardiness decreases.
• They sleep less in class.
• They get in fewer traffic accidents.
• They visit nurses and counselors less often.
• They report less depression and irritability.

Starting school before 8:15 a.m. like we do in Montgomery County without a doubt undermines optimal academic achievement.

 

That's why I created a petition on SignOn.org to Joshua Starr, Montgomery County's superintendent of schools, which says:

We respectfully request that our school board officially recognize the large and compelling body of research regarding adolescent sleep and academic achievement, and, with a resolution, set a goal to start high schools in Montgomery County after 8:15 a.m.

 

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

 

Thanks!

 

–Mandi Mader

Patch users have voted, and most think schools should change start hours to begin later.

Have You Weighed In On Rescheduling School Hours?

Time Magazine on School Start Time for Teens

Health: Latest Findings

Countering concerns that later school start times would lead kids to stay up later the night before, a new study by researchers at Hasbro Children's Hospital found that when ninth-to-12th-graders started school at 8:30 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., they went to bed 18 min. earlier and slept an average of 45 min. more each school night. They also reported less depression and more alertness, and the percentage of kids falling asleep in class dropped twofold. In addition, fewer students were late to their first class.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2002531,00.html#ixzz0vMN7Jnt2