Should High School Start Later Essay

Words: 1242
Pages: 5

Going to bed late and waking up early is becoming an unhealthy cycle for high schoolers across the nation. Between school, work, extracurricular activities, and homework, there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done and get a healthy amount of sleep. Teenagers need between 8.5 and 9.5 hours of sleep each night, but the average teenager only gets about 7 hours of sleep (McKibben). Majority of high schools start before 8 a.m., and with approximately 3.5 hours of homework per night, students don’t get enough sleep to perform their best in class. So the question is posed, would a later start for high schools be beneficial?
High schools that start before 8 a.m. should start later; even just half an hour later could have large benefits
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and starts school at 8am and is done with the school day at 2:30 p.m. This student plays basketball and practice starts at 2:45 p.m. and goes until 5:30 p.m. By the time this student gets home it is almost 6 p.m., time for dinner, and after dinner it’s time to do chores. It’s now 7:30 p.m. and time for homework. After three and a half hours of school work, it is now 11 p.m. and time for a shower and to get ready for bed. If you include the above mentioned distractions throughout the evening, students may have trouble managing their time with accomplishing any of these tasks. By the time this student gets to bed it will be close to midnight and they will have about six and a half hours of sleep. Now what if this student also had a job? Or what if they needed help in their classes and wanted to do after school tutoring? There wouldn’t be enough time in the day for them to get everything done, if they intended to get enough sleep. This is just an example of how someone’s routine could be during the school week. The point that is being made with this example is that some students don’t even get home until the evening and may not have even started their homework, yet they are still expected to get about nine hours of sleep to be