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 “Should School Start Later?” Many scientist and school districts have this question in mind.  An article written by Danny Lewis entitled “Sleep Scientist Say School Should Start Later,” believes that waking up at the crack of dawn for another day of school isn’t fun for anyone especially not for the millions of kids who have to be at school before 8:30 am. Lewis also talks about how  that there aren’t a lot of people between 10 and 55 who aren’t suited to wake up so early in the morning, especially not high schoolers and adolescents are the most affected by struggling to get up early.         More information can be found in the Healthy School Hours and the various opinions of many experts.  They have determined that there is a shift in sleep cycles beginning with adolescence that make it more difficult for teens to fall asleep as early as younger children or older adults. Experts say that the typical sleep cycle beginning around eleven at night for teens and continue through eight in the morning and around five or six in the morning to catch the commute to early start for school. They have said that adolescents need about nine hours of sleep per night. Today nearly two-thirds get under eight hours and at least 40% of high schools start at eight and less than ten percent in the U.S start at 7:30.

    Healthy School Hours has also researched that a hundred years ago most schools started around nine in the morning. During the 1970’s through the 1980’s  it had shifted to earlier hours. Sleep researchers have said , “Since the 1990’s  other health professionals have been telling us that early school hours are harming children. It's not the number of hours of sleep but also the timing of sleep that is required for optimal health.’’ This position can be justified by the National Sleep Foundation in an article called, “School Start Time and Sleep,” tells us the later sleep and wake patterns among adolescents are biologically determined that there is a natural tendency for teenagers is to stay up late at night and wake up later in the morning. They have also come up with some evidence suggesting that teenagers are sleep deprived and have recently conducted a poll and found out that 60% of children under the age of 18 complained of being tired during the day.  

        On April 2 of 1999 Representative  Zoe Lofgren introduced House Congressional Resolution 135 or “Zzz’s to A’s.” This act would encourage individual  schools and school districts all over the country to move school start times to no earlier than 8:30am. Scholastic even provided some further evidence on their article “Should School Start Later?” Their claim states that more than 80% of public school start prior to 8:30 am and have some responses from doctors declaring that it robs teens of vital rest. Scholastic has also provided some facts mentioning that teens need 9 ¼ hours of nightly sleep for optimal performance and health but ⅔ of high school students report sleeping less than seven hours each night. Doctors  say that the production of the body’s sleep hormone, melatonin, occurs later at night during puberty. This making more difficult for adolescents to fall asleep before  11 p.m. and wake up before 8.am.

    Russell Foster, wrote in his article, “The Science of Sleepy Teenagers,” that a British newspaper headline in 2007 claimed that a statement from a brain doctor saying, “Making teens start school in the morning is cruel.” Foster’s also states that a tired teen is a grumpy, moody, angry, and stresses one. He also observed that in the U.S adolescents have biologically delayed sleep patterns that were compared with adults and several schools  were promptly considered to put back the start of the school day. Foster also claims  that biology isn’t just the only cause of the problem he believes that there is more factors that contribute to the problem such as cell phones, PC’s and gaming devices disturb the available time we can to sleep.  He also states that the amount of  sleep teenagers receives variate between countries, geographic regions, and believes all studies show that  they are going to bed later and not getting as much sleep as they need because of early school hours.

    Most high schoolers would prefer to wake up a bit later than six or seven to catch the bus or however they commute to school and also have the  start of class to begin later on in the day as well. The question,  “Should School Start Later?”  have been answered and it is still questioned by school districts, concerned teachers, scientist and students. Various studies have shown that sleep hours can interfere with school hours this essay explains multiple opinions on how school should start later. Maybe in the next couple of years the school hours may be changed.