Later School Start Times Research Paper

Words: 750
Pages: 3

Dear Kevin Dehmer, My name is Jake Tokarz, and I am a freshman at Somerville High School. I am writing to you about the potential benefits of later school start times. My position on this topic is that later school start times are vastly more beneficial, and should be enforced and regulated by the state of NJ. Although early school start times are convenient, starting school later has been linked to many mental benefits. The author, Anayat Durrani, supports this idea in the article 4 Benefits of Later School Start Times where she quotes Lisa L. Lewis, a journalist and author, on the topic, who states, “There are resulting improvements across the board: grades improve, attendance goes up and graduation rates go up fairly significantly.” (Durrani) …show more content…
Getting less sleep, which is a direct effect of starting school early, can negatively impact a student's physical health as well as their ability to make choices. The author, Shalini Paruthi, supports this idea in the article, Recommended Amount of Sleep for Pediatric Populations: A Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which states, “Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs.” (Paruthi) Later school start times have been shown to increase the amount of sleep students get, which in turn positively impacts their physical health and decision-making skills Shalini Paruthi, the author of the article, displays this information, specifically the physical pros of later school start times, to emphasize how beneficial later school start times can be. Later school start times have many physical and decision-based benefits, but there are always two sides to the story as there are disadvantages to later school start