Ask parents of teenagers how it is to get them up and out the door on school mornings, and the answers, nearly invariably, come back the same: difficult, frustrating, stressful.
Now, an increasing number of people — parents, health care professionals and educators — are taking notice of the science of sleep and are speaking out about school start times for teens. Just last month the American Academy of Pediatrics weighed in, calling sleep deprivation among middle and high school students a public health problem and stating that based on extensive research, middle and high schools should delay their start times until 8:30 a.m. or later.
On Vashon, where the middle and high schools begin at 8 a.m. — later than many schools start and later than the start times just a few years ago — school district officials say they are familiar with the science that indicates teens who do not get enough sleep are at risk of a variety of health and academic problems. But, they say, many districts, including Vashon, face fiscal and logistical challenges when trying to align start times accordingly.
“We have long known this to be true,” Vashon High School Principal Danny Rock said about the benefits of later starts. “We do not structure school as a society based on what we know will help students learn. We have not structured school to meet their physiological needs. We have compromised our students’ physical needs for other needs and values.”
Math teacher and coach Andy Sears spoke to some of those needs and values, noting that gym and field space for the island’s athletes of all ages is limited, and if the high school were to push back its practice times, that would also affect community sports activities, potentially making them end too late for younger kids. He also noted the large number of off-island students who attend the high school, and he wonders if later high school practices would mean those students would get home too late in the evening.
“We have to make it so that students can learn some things out of the classroom as well,” he said.
The district nurse, Sarah Day, voiced strong support for later start times, from her perspective as a mother and as a school district health professional, where she said she sees many district students who are fatigued and struggling with considerable stress.
“I am very concerned about the mental health of kids in our district. Stress and fatigue add to that,” she said. “I support the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics, absolutely.”
Superintendent Michael Soltman noted that just a few years ago the district looked into implementing a common start time, but the expense of adding the required buses was prohibitive at $250,000 to $300,000. He added that some parents of elementary-age students have voiced concern about the idea of flipping the school schedules so that elementary students would start the day first, allowing the middle and high schools to start later without the addition of more buses. Such an arrangement would mean that young children would have to wait for buses in the dark, which some saw as a potential safety issue.
Rock added he believes the 8 a.m. start time is a good compromise currently, but he is open to conversation about it.
“The more we learn about the teenage brain, it ought to challenge us in how we engage in the learning environment,” he said.
Soltman and school board members Bob Hennessey and Laura Wishik also said they would be open to further discussion, and Hennessey noted he is willing to explore the subject with the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association, regarding how later start times might affect sports games.
While challenges for school districts may exist, the science has remained clear regarding the sleep needs of teenagers and how detrimental sleep deprivation can be to their physical and mental health.
It is widely understood that because of biological changes in teens’ bodies, most teens have difficulty falling asleep before 11 p.m. They need roughly nine hours of sleep a night, making the optimal wake time about 8 a.m. Ideally, then, schools would start later than 8:30 a.m., allowing time for breakfast and travel.
In its policy statement on school start times, the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that nearly 60 percent of sixth through eighth graders and almost 90 percent of high school students get less than the recommended hours of sleep each night. Most high school students sleep for about seven hours, leaving them with the same levels of fatigue as patients with sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, and setting them up for the many consequences of sleep deprivation, including negative effects on mood, increased risk of obesity and diabetes, the development of attention and memory problems, behavior control issues and a lowered quality of life. To illustrate part of the problem, some experts say that the hormone melatonin, which regulates the body’s sleep-wake cycles, peaks at 7 a.m. in teens and 4 a.m. for adults — meaning that waking a teen at 7 a.m. is like waking an adult at 4 a.m.
Studies also show that parents often fail to recognize sleep deprivation in their children, and in a recent interview, Dr. Morris Chang of the Highline Sleep Center in Burien noted it is important that parents and educators understand that lack of sleep often appears differently in adults — who tend to doze off when tired — than it does in teens. Parents of sleep-deprived teens should not expect to learn that their children are falling asleep in class, he said, but instead might find them to be generally irritable, inattentive or mentally sluggish. Furthermore, stimulants such as caffeine can mask the effects of sleep deprivation, he said, but the risks of sleep deprivation still exist despite the temporary lift a cup of coffee or can of soda provides.
While the physical and emotional importance of sleep is clear, results have been mixed about how much students benefit academically from later start times. A Minneapolis study found no significant change in grades and test scores based on start times, but other studies have shown significant academic benefits to later starts, especially among students who had been testing at the low end of the spectrum. Moving school to start one hour later, the authors of one study found, would have as much impact on test scores as reducing class size by one-third. Additionally, a 2009 study of Chicago Public Schools compared how students fared in morning versus afternoon classes. Classes there start by 8 a.m. and many students are tardy. They found that when a student took a class mattered, with students taking math first period scoring worse on end-of-year exams and students taking English first period scoring worse on English tests.
Locally, the issue of school start times has figured front and center recently at the Seattle Public Schools, where nearly 4,000 people signed a petition seeking to change school times to no later than 8:30 a.m. The measure drew support from several local sleep experts as well as the Seattle Council of Parent, Teacher and Students Associations, the Seattle School Nurses Association and the Seattle Education Association. As a result, in March, the Seattle school board directed district staff to fully vet the issue of starting later. A proposal is to be completed by next September at a cost of $571,000.
Soltman said he is looking forward to hearing the results of that study, and if the Seattle school district decides to implement later start times, how they will manage some of the issues involved.
On a national scale, the conversation about later start times has been in the news repeatedly in recent months; US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has shown support for later starts, and a grassroots movement called Start School Later is growing and has 27 chapters in 15 states, including chapters in Seattle and Bellevue.
In an interview last week, co-founder of the organization, Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, a medical historian and a former associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, said she encourages school districts to think outside of the box when facing scheduling challenges. Could sports practices be held before school, she asked — a choice that would affect only those students involved in the sports — or could school days be shortened so that a later start would not create a later dismissal?
“Shouldn’t we start at the premise that schools run at times that are best for health and learning?” she said. “Once we get that, we can work everything else around that.”
Snider noted that even though Vashon’s 8 a.m. start time is better than that of many schools, she believes the evidence indicates a later start time would benefit students.
“Every study that has been done so far shows that even a small change, even 15 minutes, has a measurable effect on mental health, alertness and learning,” she said. “It looks like every bit helps.”
The issue of sleep, she said, is as fundamental as eating nutritiously and exercising. And, she said, families are vitally important in the conversation and must play an active role.
“It is the responsibility of the family to ensure healthy sleep times,” she said. “It is the responsibility of the schools and the community to give healthy wake times.”
